Irony

We have only seen two Spring training baseball games in person. One in Florida some years ago and now one in Arizona.

The first game was really a scrimmage between the Cincinnati Reds and... well.. the Cincinnati Reds. Since this is R's favorite team, it was a very good thing. His team was guaranteed to win.

It was a windy day and it tended to knock the ball down if it was hit to left field - so there were some well-hit balls that might have gone out on another day. Got to see a guy named Hector Carrasco throw the ball at around 99 mph in the bullpen and figured out why Barry Larkin was an All-Star. Good stuff.

But, here's the most memorable part. Roberto Kelly was the Reds starting center fielder at the time. midway through the game - he smacked a ball into left-field and he took his sweet time heading to first. Obviously, he thought it was a home run. Well, the ball died in left at the wall. He realized this as he got to first and sped up in an effort to at least get to second base. He was thrown out easily.

As he came back towards the Reds dugout, the first base coach, Joel Youngblood gave him a continuous stream of, um, criticism. If you can picture a coach jawing with an umpire - you might get some idea. There was, as you might guess, a fair amount of 'colorful' language. And, we were only a couple rows in back of first base - so we got to see, and hear, the whole thing.

This time, we had a chance to see the Milwaukee Brewers host the San Francisco Giants. The game didn't have much pitching, but it was fun to see nonetheless. We sat four rows back - not far from first base.

The irony?

The first base coach for the Giants was Roberto Kelly.