Brandon Phillips! The Reds and Cardinals rivalry is awesome!

Walk off homer for Brandon Phillips!

Pujols homers off of Chapman!

I'm telling you, Reds-Cardinals could be Red Sox-Yankees for the next decade!

Please take note, Baseball!

The Reds should be the next Super Power!

Tonight's game in Cincinnati should be the talk of baseball tonight.

Were there four games played last night?

It really felt like there were more than 2 games played, didn’t there?

The Reds and the Phillies played two games yesterday… in the first game the Reds showed some serious guts. They came right out swinging, homering in the first at bat.

Bronson Arroyo was in control, Roy Oswalt was faltering, Chase Utley was a mess in the field and the mighty Phillies were vulnerable.

Then they played ANOTHER game in Philadelphia. In this one the Phillies bats were clutch, the calls went against the Reds and the defense would have made Lupus hide his face.

They played 2 games in San Francisco as well. In the first game, the bats were cooking and Matt Cain was dealing. The Braves looked dead from the neck up and AT&T Park was rocking.

In the second game, the Braves got the key hits, made all the right pitches and made the right plays. Meanwhile the Giants pitching nibbled too much and could not get in sync. Eventually it was a Braves shot into McCovey Cove that was the difference.

The problem for the Reds and Giants? They only played one game each today. And now both teams are facing a dire situation in Game 3.

The Reds are staring down elimination.
The Giants have to face Tim Hudson.

If only those first games could have counted!

Cardinals vs. Reds could be the rivalry of the 2010s

Hey baseball… want to do something SMART regarding the marketing of your sport?
OK, I didn’t think so.

But in case you do, let me point out something that is going on. The two most popular teams remain the Yankees and the Red Sox and yes, most of the TV and marketing attention is being pushed towards them.

However, the rivalry is getting a little stale… and this is coming from a die hard Red Sox fan and a classic Yankee hater. It reached its fever pitch in 2003-2004 and 2005, although the baseball world was denied a third straight Red Sox/Yankees ALCS in 2005 when neither team made it out of the Division Series.

Both teams have won a World Series since… both teams have missed the playoffs at least once since… the Yankees went through a big transformation and the Red Sox are rebuilding.

The rivalry isn’t what it was 5 years ago and I think the rest of the baseball world is bored of it.

But looming out there is a potential rivalry… one with two franchises with deep traditions, great players and now some legitimate bad feelings.

I’m talking about the Reds and the Cardinals.
And if you were smart, you’d build up these two teams and their mutual dislike to make their games burn redder than their uniforms.

People think there is too much Northeast focus? Then here’s two Midwest teams whose appeal can stretch far beyond their city limits the way the Red Sox appeal travels throughout New England and the Yankees have fans… well… everywhere!


Ohio (save for the sadists in Cleveland), Kentucky, Indiana, Tennessee.. that could all be Reds territory.

And the Cardinals already dominate the Midwest with one of the best fan bases in the game.

Both teams have terrific players and are young enough that they might both be good for a while. Perhaps the Albert Pujols vs. Joey Votto debate can be the great argument for the next few years.

They both have rich history, but they never seem to be good at the same time.
The Cardinals won multiple World Series in the 1960s.
The Reds won multiple World Series in the 1970s.
The Cardinals won a World Series in the 1980s.
The Reds won a World Series in the 1990s.
The Cardinals won a World Series in the 2000s.
And now it looks like the Reds will be in the post season this year.

They both have respected managers who don’t seem to like each other and their teams… well their mutual dislike is as subtle as an Albert Pujols homer.

Brandon Phillips talking trash. Former Cardinals Jim Edmonds and Scott Rolen brawling against their old teammates. Former Red Jason LaRue being clocked by Cincy’s Johnny Cueto and possibly having his career end?

These games could be hyped up and made to be a clash of traditional division rivals that is not so friendly.

I am not talking about trying to make the Rockies and the Diamondbacks blood enemies. These are teams whose fan base goes back into the 19th Century… and there are plenty of transplanted Ohians and Missourians through out the country

The Northeast (and us transplants) will always get up for Yankees and Red Sox. And if the Mets ever get good again, they’ll care about Mets and Phillies.

Now imagine ANOTHER region of the country that pumped up for regular season baseball.

It’s being served to you on a red plate.

Yankees/Red Sox? That was so 2000s!
Reds/Cardinals? That’s THIS decade. (Or it could be.)

I can't help but feel partially responsible for the brawl tonight

I thought it was fun that Brandon Phillips wants to get the Cardinals' goat.

Why not put a little electricity into a potential rivalry. I mean have the Cardinals and Reds, two of the oldest franchises in baseball, EVER been considered rivals?

Why not start now?

What I DIDN'T expect is to see an all out brawl in the first inning.

But I guess that's what a rivalry is like. It's bad blood. It's "I want to beat you because I don't like you."

I tell you something I found very interesting... not that Brandon Phillips got under the Cardinals skin or that LaRussa and Dusty Baker were at each other (there is no love lost between them.)

It was Scott Rolen going after Chris Carpenter.

Carpenter said something to Dusty that got an f--- you from Baker.

And then Rolen, who earlier was trying to be a peacemaker, went right after his former teammate and fellow 2006 World Series winner.

So Rolen, the former Cardinal and current Red, is smack dab in the middle of this rivalry. And to quote Darth Vader in Return of the Jedi... There is no conflict!

They play tomorrow, 9:30 AM Pacific time, and three more times in September.

This could be good folks.

GOOD FOR BRANDON PHILLIPS!

Seriously... there can sometimes be too much gentile friendliness among baseball players these days.

Look, I understand that most of the ballplayers are friends now and you aren't going to get any true bad blood between the teams. We hear how rivalries are media creations and teams don't really care who they beat.

Yeah, as if Aaron Boone's homer would have meant the same to the players if it beat the A's... or the 2004 ALCS comeback would have been as sweet for the Red Sox if it were against the Twins.

Well Cincinnati is in its first REAL pennant race in over a decade. (Sorry, I am not counting the end of the 2006 season when the Reds almost backed into the playoffs because the Cardinals imploded down the stretch... even though the Cardinals went on to win the whole shebang.)

Cincinnati fans are coming back. There is reason to be excited again.
And the Reds and Cardinals are starting a TRULY meaningful series. I'm not talking about the "Can the Sox struggle back into the race" series they had with the Yankees.

I'm talking a "Two teams tied in the loss column for first place in mid August playing each other" series.

Now the midwest is supposed to be above anger, hatred and meanness (or so I have read) but Brandon Phillips is having none of it.

He threw a Molotov Cocktail in the direction of St. Louis. According to Rob Neyer (and why would he lie to me?) Brandon not so diplomatically declared “I really hate the Cardinals. Compared to the Cardinals, I love the Chicago Cubs. Let me make this clear: I hate the Cardinals.”

I love the caveat that he needs to compare his hatred of the Cardinals with the relatively low hatred of the Cubs. As if we ALL knew how much he hates the Cubs and we'd think "Holy Cats! He hates them more than the CUBS! Thems is fighting words!"

How much of this was show? How much of this was playing for the fans?
Who knows and who cares?

Baseball needs to let loose every once in a while. There needs to be a few Kevin Millars and David Wells and Brandon Phillips out there willing to pop off and be fun.

It's fun, remember?

Now Millar and Wells also both came up big in games that led to a World Series title.

If Phillips comes up small down the stretch, he'll be all talk.

But hey, at least it is fun to see this energy out of Cincy.

Keep talking, Brandon. Tell us what you REALLY think.