Beyond Opening Day

The media crush is over.

The number of media members that covers opening day in Cincinnati is four fold above a normal night.

Even with the nine New York writers the crowd is slim.

Cincinnati is down to one Daily, The Enquirer and the Dayton Daily New still covers the Reds everyday. Mlb.com has a daily presence and the Associated Press has two members at each home game.

TV crews send only a videographer. These guys used to be known as camermen. Now they ask questions like a reporter does but there is no need for them to grace the tube with their image.

Every radio station does a remote on the initial day. Now just the flagship station has a presence.

It is not just the media. Every seat in the park is filled on the uniquely Cincinnati holiday. Now for the second game of the year the crowd is a paltry, 13,568, even with warmer weather and no rain.

The players are more relaxed and into a routine. They are much easier to talk to now that the comedic and lesser experienced media members are gone.

As the experienced baseball fan knows that in the standings the opening game is still only one of 162 in spite of the extra hoopla. Yet the one-day baseball media asks, "How important is it to win the first one?, etc"

It is laughable.

One year I walked up to Denny Neagle, a noted practical joker, after an opening day loss. He was not the starting pitcher and the rest of the media was crowded around Pete Harnisch giving the usual cliche answers.

I walked up to Neagle and asked, "Is it too early to panic."

He actually started to answer before he realized that I was having fun with him.