Every day there are three things, here are those three things.
Although I've gotta be honest, finding three things today takes some work.
First of all, though. How 'bout that eclipse, huh?
Whoa.
1) Dunn's the one. Want reason number 298 why sports franchises should have halls of fame? Because when you're in the middle of a fourth straight season going nowhere, with little hope of winning on the horizon, it deflects the conversation toward something that makes people feel good.
Who ya' got...Boone, Dunn, Franco, Graves, Rolen, or Sanders?
This seems pretty obvious to me, although I'm admittedly biased, but Adam Dunn is the guy.
He cranked out 40 homer seasons the way Joey Votto cranks out seasons doing a lot of what Dunn couldn't. He displayed the most prodigious, natural home run power I've seen, and while he struck out a ton and pissed people off with his laid-back attitude, he did one thing exceptionally well for an exceptionally long time, and that one thing is exceptionally important.
I can't say that about the other candidates. Danny Graves and John Franco accumulated saves. Meh. Reggie Sanders had one memorable season, and a bunch that I can barely remember. Aaron Boone was a good player who's best seasons were on teams I'd like to forget. Scott Rolen has a more compelling argument for Cooperstown than you think. What he did across three and a half years here might add up to one quality season.
None of those guys did anything that resembles piling up 270 homers. And let's be honest, none of those guys will give a Hall of Fame speech that you want to hear as much as you'll want to hear Adam's.
Related: ESPN1530 Podcast: Perusing The Reds Hall Of Fame Ballot.
2) Eric Winston. The Bengals lineman, who's also the President of the NFLPA, had some things to say about a potential lockout in 2021. From WCPO...
Winston said it’s also inevitable that most fans will side with management. He admitted he was shocked when that happened in 2010.
“My personal theory is they think they have a stake in the team. We saw it play out. I was as blindsided by it as probably anybody,” Winston said.
“You think you’re going to go on the radio and convince the fans - most fans have a boss and they’re working men, too - but they don’t look at this the same way. They don’t look at issues the way we look at issues - wages, hours, working conditions. You could talk about the same things in a coal miners’ meeting as we do in our meetings and at the end of the day it boils down to those topics.
“I think fans look at the team and say that’s their team. They have an ownership and that’s why you are always hearing fans say, ‘Oh, the salary cap.” They think they're kind of general managers, and obviously fantasy football plays into that …
“I don’t know if that’s right or not. That’s always been my working theory as to why fans tend to side with ownership. They don’t look like it like, ‘We’re workers and they’re workers.’ They look at it like, ‘Oh, that’s my team. Whether it's that player or another player, it's still going to be my team and I want them to win and I don’t really care who’s doing the winning.’"
It's hard to say that for you and I as fans, any work stoppage - especially one that involves splitting $14 billion worth of revenues - is "interesting," but with everything pointing toward another face-off between players and owners in four years, I do think the public's reaction will be at least a little, um, interesting.
I believe we are more "pro player" than ever, and after watching team owners do things like extort cities in order to get new stadiums, move franchises, raise ticket prices, charge for things like seat licenses, and remain often unavailable to the public, I'll bet most fans side with players.
Ultimately, most of us are gonna side with having football, no matter what each sides gives and gets, and I'm already dreading four years of rhetoric in the run-up to the lockout, but I think Eric is wrong about which side the public will favor more than the other.
Work stoppage talk. Yeah, it's that kind of day.
3) Fickell on the fence. Luke Fickell won't yet say who is starting quarterback will be when he opens his first season as UC's head coach a week from Thursday.
Although I'll guess he knows who it will be.
And I'll guess that it will be Hayden Moore.
It also doesn't matter.
At least not for week one.
Or week two.
In fact, I'd argue that little about the makeup of the roster or who plays how much in the first two games matters much at all. They're going to crush Austin Peay, then get drilled at Michigan.
The third game matters. And no, not because the annual game against Miami is a rivalry game with a bell at stake.
The Battle for the Victory Bell feels like a pivot point for UC's season. At 1-1, they'll be on the road, playing an opponent that UC hasn't lost to since the first half of George W. Bush's second term.
But...the Redhawks have played Cincinnati well in recent years, and coming off of last year's turnaround with a quarterback who was very, very good in the second half of the season, with the game being in Oxford, and UC's team being rebuilt, there's a sense that if Miami is ever going to win this game, this is the year.
Not that UC will lose, but if they do, the Bearcats are staring 1-3 in the face, given that they'll be underdogs at Navy.
If they beat Miami, a 2-2 start after playing three straight on the road would be acceptable.
I'm more interested in who's playing where, and how much, then.
Radio Show: Back at it on Friday from Smoke Justis in Covington. Also, the show returns to me being on every day starting at September 21st. I'm very, very excited about this.
Recommended Link Of The Day: Joey Votto’s Greatness Is Wasted On The Reds.