Last Thursday I went to Cincinnati with my friends Ronnie Galloway and Paul Haydon to see the Reds play the Chicago Cubs in a 12:35 exhibition game at Great America Ball Park.
With me, it was sort of an ego thing. I’ve been a fan since Ewell “The Whip” Blackwell was the ace of the pitching staff, and I hate to go through a summer without seeing at least one game in person.
For that reason, I’m glad we went.
But it is also something I’ll never do again under the circumstances we endured.
Billy Reed is a member of the U.S. Basketball Writers Hall of Fame, the Kentucky Journalism Hall of Fame, the Kentucky Athletic Hall of Fame and the Transylvania University Hall of Fame. He has been named Kentucky Sports Writer of the Year eight times and has won the Eclipse Award three times. Reed has written about a multitude of sports events for over four decades and is perhaps one of the most knowledgeable writers on the Kentucky Derby. His book “Last of a BReed” is available on Amazon. It wasn’t so much the traffic stoppage that began on I-71 at the Fort Mitchell exit, although that seemed to last at least as long as a Republican politician’s prison sentence. It cost us so much time that we missed the first half-inning. It was still there, on that side of the expressway when we were going home.
But it wasn’t that. It was the heat. The moment I sat down, I knew I was in big trouble.
For all its wonderful amenities, GABC does not have a shaded area anywhere. For older people like yours truly, who have breathing and mobility issues, It’s simply a nightmare. I lasted about an inning before I started to feel woozy. I told my friends, “Guys, I can’t take it. I’m going back under the grandstand to find a cool place to sit in front of a TV. You guys come get me when you’ve had enough of the heat.”
Amazingly, I found exactly what I wanted – a seat before a TV with a cool breeze coming in from the Ohio River and close proximity to a restroom. On such a day, it was the closest thing to paradise that GABC could offer a gaffer like me. After a couple of innings or so, I went to use the restroom.
This is where the weird stuff began – or the comic relief, if you prefer.
I was sitting in a stall when I heard a booming voice say, “Is Billy Reed in here?’”
Shocked, I got out the words, “I’m here.”
“Good,” said the voice, “we’ll wait for you outside.”
When I went out, six armed and uniformed Cincinnati officers were waiting for me.
It seems my friends Ronnie and Paul, bless their hearts, thought they had lost me and were worried enough to call Ball Park Security. We turned around and marched back up to exactly where I had watched the last two innings. We bid the police officers goodbye, thanked them, and sat down to watch a couple more innings before leaving.
Here I must speak kindly of the police officers. They were uniformly polite, kind, and professional. Sometimes we forget how many good cops there are in every American city.
The saving grace, if you want to call it that, was that the Reds, who are having a fine season, stunk up the joint like spoiled bratwurst. The final score was 7-1 Cubs. Joey Votto didn’t hit a homer. So we didn’t miss any good baseball.
On my way home, I thought about the heat and why the architects didn’t put in some shaded areas. I’m still wondering about it because it makes no sense to me. The team has to know there will be days like Thursday.
At least I found out again what good friends Ronnie and Paul are. They cared enough to call out the cops to find me. They made sure I was comfortable. I will go to hell and back for them. We proved that to each other on Thursday.
Don’t you and your friends have cell phones?
Was this the annual Civil Rights game? Otherwise, why were two NL teams playing an exhibition game at this point in the season?