Fair and Unfair

Unfair first: Kenton Keith has had almost all charges against him dropped. He now faces one count of misdemeanor criminal trespassing for not leaving the premises when asked. He is pleading not guilty. Still, it was nice of IPD and the Marion County prosecutor to make sure that he got written up in the paper of being guilty of a litany of other small time nonsense. Just one more bit of evidence to show how awesome it is to be young and black in Naptown. If he gets off on this charge, I doubt they’ll be any big headlines proclaiming it.

Now onto the fair: the Reds fired GM Wayne Krivsky. Krivsky’s job was in jeopardy from the minute Walt Jocketty came to town. Let’s be 100% honest; Jocketty is a top flight GM, and the team is in better hands. If I had to guess, I’d say the match that lit the fuse was today’s roster move. David Ross comes off the DL, and the Reds have to cut someone with a guaranteed contract. The candidates are Corey Patterson and Scott Hatteberg. I’d say that Krivsky’s firing means that Hatteberg is out. He had a very strong year last year, and that earned him a new contract. The problem is that you can’t give a contract to a left-handed hitting firstbaseman when your #1 prospect (Joey Votto who is tearing up the league) is also a left-handed hitting firstbaseman. The team also screwed up giving Patterson $3 million this year when he was sitting at home on his butt at the start of spring training. With any luck he’ll be right back there.

Update: The Reds basically tabled the decision by dumping Norris Hopper onto the DL. That buys them two more weeks to deal Hatteberg.

Media reports will mention the ill-fated Nats trade of two summers ago. That is utter nonsense. That trade was great for the Reds as they dumped two useless, expensive players for some banged up bullpen arms. I’ve already written about that deal ad nausem, so I won’t rehash it now. Krivsky didn’t do everything right, but the team is WAAAAY better now than it was when he took over. The farm system actually has players in it. The roster has talent. The team has young pitching. I think the team will do better under Jocketty, but I’d give ol‘ Wayne a solid B for his tenure with the club, and I wish him the best of luck.

And finally in the “about freaking time” category comes this news. Great, so now we still have to wait another 2 weeks to find out what Walsh has on the Pats. I hope it’s good.

Demond Sanders: I think it is bizarre that you feel sorry for a guy that was out very late, drunk in public, and helping an underage girl get into a nightclub. Just a bad decision. Cloud 9 is the same nightclub that Jamal Tinsley was partying at when he was trailed home and fired upon some months ago. The cops are no doubt under pressure to keep the club secure and the parking lot empty after hours. Having charges dropped isn’t the same thing as being innocent. None of the charges are a huge deal and I wish Keith all the best. I don’t think it is fair to imply that IPD officers are a bunch of racists because from the looks of it they did their job correctly.