… and my Cincinnati Reds will not be holding up one of these trophies this year because they are not in the post season…

So I must choose my rooting interest for the baseball playoffs this year. I am generally a National League sort of guy. I cannot root for the (recently) hated competitor Cardinals nor the (classically) hated competitor Dodgers. Not gonna root for division rivals Brewers or those Giants this year. Though I dislike the Native American iconography and the insidious ‘Tomahawk Chant’ that leaves the Atlanta Braves, which is actually geographically closest to my new home in Central Florida, so the Braves will be my National League choice.

Though I lived in New York for a couple of decades I never learned to love the Yankees, though I found it easy to hate the Red Sox just from drinking NYC tap water. The White Sox mean nothing to me and I especially dislike the Astros for their recent cheating scandal so that is out. Again that leaves the closest geographically to my Central Florida base so I guess I will root for the Tampa Bay Rays to lose in the World Series to the Braves who should then change their name in the off-season.

So there you have it. But I will be most closely watching the off-season roster changes for the Cincinnati Reds. Hope we can retain most of the awesome team (but improve our grrrrr bullpen) that came oh-so-close to contention this year. Mostly I will root for a competitive post-season and exciting contests to bridge me over the the inevitable 2022 Reds Dynasty. Go Reds!

As always you can find more at www.walterthinnes.com and on Twitter @walterthinnes