Guestblog: Rounding Third and Headed Home (Or, My Only Grievance with Great American Ballpark)

Sports-writer guestblog time! This time, it's a bit more op-ed. Thank you Bradley!

I love Great American Ballpark.

I hate what's written on the side of Great American Ballpark.

"Rounding Third and Heading for Home" it says, proudly displayed in big, bold red letters, stuck to the side of our stadium for all to see. No doubt it's hard to drive past a baseball stadium without vivid imagery of a classic ballgame being played, of history being made as fans excitedly jump to their feet, shrugging off now-unimportant eight dollar beers and four dollar hotdogs to cheer Griffey Jr.'s home run, or Pete Rose ironically sliding into home plate.

Especially for us Cincinnatians, who've had baseball's presence in our town longer than anyone. Not even the absence of sunlight could stop the Queen City from watching its coveted baseball games. Now through thick and twenty years of thin, that tradition is still being held in our city to this day. The recent Opening Day celebration proves just how much the Reds mean to Porkopolis.

So why in God's holy name does it say "Rounding Third and Heading for Home" on the side of our stadium, instead of the most classic phrase ever uttered by a ballgame announcer in this or any city?

"And this one belongs to the Reds"

The phrase nearly brings tears to the eyes of my father, who grew up with Marty and Joe's voice, the voice of our Cincinnati Reds for as long as the both of us can remember. It's iconic. It's classic. It's impossible to ignore the blatant disregard for such a perfect and synonymous phrase, a phrase that signifies the end to a perfect night, and that our team has just added another win to the list.

So I've looked into the matter. As it turns out, the phrase to be pasted to the building went under considerable thought. In the end however, "And this one belongs to the Reds" wasn't deemed the slogan to use on the basis that the powers-that-be felt it didn't signify that our stadium belonged enough to the fans, and that the idea of "this one belonging to the Reds" displayed the wrong sort of message.

Are you f!cking kidding me? There will never be a more perfect slogan to use. In a million years, there won't ever be a phrase that unites Reds fans the same way. Never once have I huddled around a radio with my friends to hear that the Reds were "rounding third and heading for home." Not once have I walked in from a long day to hear my dad excitedly yell that we rounded third and headed for home.

It doesn't mean the same thing. It doesn't carry the same weight, and it doesn't give Cincinnati Reds fans the credit they deserve. The team belongs to all of us, every day of every season, through thick and thin: through every injury and tragic loss, and ever nail-biting overtime inning. Ladies and gentlemen, those men in the uniforms aren't the only ones that can call themselves part of the Reds team. (If I may get sappy:) we're all a part of what makes our team -and people- this one belongs to the Reds.