For Bruce & the Reds, The Show Goes on in 2011

It’s funny because we’ve still got all of February to go before we can even mention Spring training. But sitting here on a Sunday reading articles about Jay Bruce donating the clinch ball to the Reds Hall of Fame Museum has be stoked and ready for summer like I’ve never been before in the month of January.

Bruce shares the same sentiment as we do about the 2011 season:

“Obviously, with the extension, I know where I’m going to be for the next six-to-seven years. But expectations wise, it’s the same. We’re trying to go out and have a better season next year. I’m trying to improve as a player in order to help my team win. We have a great thing going now. I’m really excited about it.”

Clearly this is a guy who really ‘gets it’. We’ve said it a hundred times, and we’re about to say it again. He understands what the game of baseball is truly about. How can you not want this guy to be the greatest player who ever wore a Reds uniform?

“It’s great to come and interact with the fans,” Bruce said. “Everybody at every stop, they’re the ones that really push what we do anyway. They’re the ones that drive this whole sport. Fans make it what it is.”

He’ll enter the 2011 season 24 years young with an already a decent resume created during his big league career gone by. But we hope in 2011–Jay Bruce and the Reds explode. It’s a big season in the fact that I expect the team to slip a little bit and this is largely expected to be the year for Jay Bruce to really arrive as a Superstar type player.

Just a few more months, and we’ll be spending Sundays like this watching the Reds win on getaway day and playing lots and lots of golf. We can hardly live long enough. Until the show goes on that is.