Last night C. Trent decided he had been wrong about Cincinnati, and that it was not the sports town he once thought it was.  The Nerve.  Et tu Brutus?  He and his dog should be sent packing on the next flight out of here.  Oh, what's that, the airport is closed?  Oh, well, we'll just collect gas money and drive him as far away as we can afford.  Florence Y'all.  I kid.  In fact, presented with the evidence that C. Trent was, it is hard to argue with him.  Bruce Almighty gets his first game in the bigs and all we can manage is a meager 17k.  Really?  I've been to Bar Mitzvah's that attracted more people.  17k for the savior?  The kid walks over here on the Ohio River from Louisville and only 17k show up?  Does he need to turn water into ice cold beeeeer here ( those who've actually been to a game might get the joke).  Alright I'll stop with the Christ comparisons.  Let me move back to Trent's comment.  So before we crucify him for the audacity of snark, let us examine why I think he said it. 

Surely upon his arrival to the Queen city, someone told him what a great sports city it is, or how we are grade A baseball fans.  I say this because all of us natives have told that to an immigrant, right after shoving their face full of magic chilli.  We say it because we pride ourselves on it, and we believe it because we hear everyone else in the city say it.  However, for those of you who, like me, have ventured out of the city gates into the wasteland known as Not Here, you have realized that the rest of the world doesn't know of our sports obsession.  You wonder how they've never heard of The Pit, and think they are idiots for not being able to recite the names of the Nasty Boys on queue.  Much unlike the Clintons, you begin to self-reflect, and wonder if you haven't been lying to yourself all along.  Maybe in your time of darkness you turned on a Reds game to reassure yourself, only to see scores of empty seats.  You throw your hands up and say you were wrong, Cincinnati fans are just like any other town, there when things are good, and vacant when times are tough.  Resist that thought, and see the error of your logic.  You measuring the whole based on one metric.  Open your eyes and see.

Drive around to various high schools on a friday night in the fall and see the people, all those sports fans.  Go to a public park on a saturday and see all those kids playing their various games, see Dick run, see Jane kick, see Dad punch an ump in the face.  We are a sports town.  Walk around Clifton in a Muskateer costume, go to Cintas in a yellow mustard sports suit, feel the sports fan's wrath.  We are a sports town.  Turn on tv late on a Sunday and see that we have four local stations devoting time to talk about local sports.  Turn the dial on the radio and listen to the crazies call for management's head.  Visit this site, a site that is doing quite well, is solely devoted to sports, and employs are misspoken friend.  YES WE CAN, er I mean We are a sports town.

And yet, 17k.  Ugh.  What can I say, that is dissapointing.  However, I don't think it stems from this towns apathy towards sports, I think there are other factors.  First, we are a city that is increasingly not living in the city.  There are people who consider themselves from Cincinnati that live an hour away.  Second, there is little to do in the immediate area around the stadium.  Professional sports teams love people who are between the ages of 21-40 who have disposable income.  People who are 21-40 love to drink alcohol, and they like to do it at bars.  Put some atmoshpere around the park, and suddenly it isn't the only thing you do in a night, it is simply the first stop.  Third, the team hasn't been good in seven years.  Seven years shows that you don't know what you are doing.  A monkey could build a decent baseball team in seven years.  So, stop firing the monkey after two years as GM.  Build it, and they will come.  IT, is the Banks project.  IT, is a team that contends.  Or at least doesn't start over trying to rebuild every three years.

Hopefully this evidence will help C. Trent see the error of his statement, but if not I, much like the Clintons, can just create a new metric.