The pennant races begin to look like pennant races when the baseball standings begin to look like baseball standings. Until then, the clubs jockey for position, set a tone and whisper about the spring's new discoveries.
Around the National League, players have been whispering about the St. Louis Cardinals, like, "Man, they're good." Though Mark McGwire lost time for a variety of reasons, they're winning. The home run hitting of Jim Edmonds and the big, sharp curveball of young left hander Rich Ankiel are awesome new forces certain to shape a much-anticipated race in the National League Central.
But as the baseball standings began to look like baseball standings, the Cardinals are dropping toward the pack while the Reds tread injuries and the Houston Astros puzzle over a new home environment that completely changes the game they play.
The baseball standings look like baseball standings when every club in the big leagues has reached double figures in wins and losses. Until then, the standings look incomplete, even if those single digits sound the main themes of the spring. The clubs that take the longest to win 10 games are taking themselves out early, because other clubs are taking just as long to lose 10.
The last holdouts in the loss column, the New York Yankees and Atlanta Braves, dropped only nine games each through May 7, which is encouraging to no other club with designs on a pennant. But beneath the elite level populated by these two powerful organizations, the challengers are shifting.
Coming into Cincinnati last weekend, the Cardinals, the NL Central club with the best April, saw an opportunity to slap down the Reds, the club with the best February. All along the map, it was billed as the meeting of McGwire and Ken Griffey Jr., two of the division's three touted power hitters. It was all of that and more, for it became the stage for Griffey's first true show that he really is in the fight and he can win it almost by himself.
On May 5, Griffey faced down McGwire homer for homer. In the end, he did a little more, which took a lot. In the first inning, Griffey drove home Pokey Reese with a single, thrilling 42,126 at Cinergy Field and giving the Reds a 1-0 lead. But Edmonds and McGwire went deep back-to-back in the fourth. McGwire made up for a lost past at Cinergy Field with the longest home run ever hit there, 473 feet to the first row of red seats in straight left-center field.
The Reds subsequently tied it 2-2, but Cardinals starter Andy Benes pitched tough until Griffey batted in the eighth. Then, Junior homered into the right field green seats, 432 feet. Scott Williamson closed out the ninth, and the Reds delivered a message.
The next day, the Cardinals were missing McGwire, whose brother had been hurt in a serious automobile accident. The Cardinals won, anyway, due to terrific pitching from Darryl Kile, who's rehabilitating his career after two damaging seasons in Coors Field and never had done well in Cincinnati.
Meanwhile, the Reds finally disabled top starter Pete Harnisch, who has struggled all season with a weak shoulder. And, just as quickly as Griffey had made the Reds matter, the prevailing bugaboo -- situational hitting -- put the Reds right back into the pack with a 3-1 loss.
So the Reds and Cardinals came to the rubber game having established nothing more or less than the rivalry everyone expects. The plot thickened in the finale's fifth inning, when the stage shifted to a man forgotten in all the home run hysteria of recent years. While McGwire and Sammy Sosa were beating down Babe Ruth and Roger Maris, Eric Davis was beating colon cancer.
As the Seattle Mariners signed Griffey and moved him to The Show in the late 1980s, Davis, playing for the Reds, already was the game's most damaging offensive force. But a widespread suspicion that he lacked the toughness to play hurt diminished his local popularity. In 1997, Davis missed much of the season battling the cancer, showing fortitude well beyond the imaginations of Reds fans 10 years earlier, bouncing back from chemotherapy treatments to help the Baltimore Orioles in the playoffs.
Today, Davis is certifiably the toughest player in the game, even if he shares playing time with J.D. Drew. In the fifth inning of Sunday's final game, Davis hit a grand slam, giving the Cardinals a 6-3 lead. And he certainly would have been the story of the day -- except Griffey was still around.
In the bottom of the sixth, Cardinals manager Tony LaRussa elected to leave weakening reliever Darren Holmes in the game to face Griffey. It's my observation that the deciding moment in any game often occurs in the sixth inning. It certainly did this time.
The game was tied, 7-7, with a runner on, two outs, a 3-2 pitch -- and Griffey jacked it over the right field fence. The Reds held on and won, 9-7. And, even if they were just 15-15, they got there without Harnisch being effective, with Barry Larkin and Sean Casey missing long stretches to injury, and with Griffey batting .214.
As 130,897 turned out for the series, anticipation of a thrilling season became reality last weekend. The Reds proved, for real, that they're in the game, no matter how the game might try to exclude them.
The Reds haven't yet taken off, and they might not. But they've been handed plenty of reasons to plunge and haven't. Good clubs find ways when their preferred ways aren't available. The Reds have shown themselves to be a good club, just by hanging around, beating back the Cardinals and now hoping they can muddle through until Larkin and Harnisch return.
Fortunately for the Reds, the NL Central race might not be as crowded as anticipated. The defending champions from Houston have lost their pitching staff to the freak show of Enron Field. Ace Jose Lima has lost the movement on his changeup and doesn't throw hard enough to overpower hitters. After 35 years of the cavernous Astrodome, the Astros now are coping with batted balls carrying in the open air, needing only 315 feet to clear the left field line.
Meanwhile, signs of dissent are creeping into the Pittsburgh Pirates, who came out of spring as the tastemakers' pick to click. Batters and pitchers take turns losing games, then blame each other. As expected, the Chicago Cubs and Milwaukee Brewers will fight to stay out of the basement, unless the return of Kerry Wood inspires a resurgence by the Cubs.
A race for the NL Central title that could have gone four clubs deep now is a two-horse race, unless and until another club finds its way. But it could have been a lot less than that. If the Cardinals had won two of three here, they'd have left town with a 5 1/2-game lead and a very favorable schedule. It's odd that a schedule should be judged favorable in early May, but this is an odd schedule.
For example, the Reds bring in the Cardinals again June 26-29, and that's it for the year. By then, the Reds will not have played in St. Louis but still will face two series there. So, they play all their games against the Cardinals at home before they play any on the road. The situation is the same regarding the Reds' schedule with the Astros, except in reverse -- the Reds will play all their games in Houston before the Astros play any here.
Funny scheduling aside, the most important note is that it really can now be said with a straight face that baseball has returned to Cincinnati. The Reds have packed in 516,624 through 16 home dates, an average of 32,289. On Aug. 11, 1994, the day of the terrible strike, the Reds were in good health, averaging 31,628. From that point on, crowds deteriorated, descending to averages below 22,000 at some points.
Now the crowds are back. And the Reds are giving the public what it wants and needs.
They're taking tough breaks in stride and holding firm against their competition. And they're winning dramatically, as a great hitter provides great hits at great moments. It's beginning to look like baseball around here, in the standings and on the field.
