THE BROO VIEW with Ken Broo

The perils of a night off. The Reds fell out of first place tonight, simply because they weren't scheduled to play. St. Louis and Milwaukee both won. The Reds are now a half game behind both, tied with the Cubs, who won today as well.

It should be a big weekend in San Diego for the men in red. The Padres aren't very good.

So the Bengals are the latest team to be profiled on the HBO series "Hard Knocks". You wonder why Marvin Lewis OK'd the project. I did too, until I figured out this is a good way for Marvin to clean up the national image of his team and maybe snare a bit of the spotlight himself. Think about it. If you're Lewis and you've been saddled with a bunch of players who've done the 'blinking lights dance' and bumbled like clowns on the field, would you not relish the chance to show the world that you have something on the ball? If indeed Lewis' best career move is the one he makes leaving Cincinnati, what better vehicle to repair his image than a show the entire NFL world (among others) will watch.

Of course, if Chris Henry does something stupid or Ochocinco decides this show is really his audition for elsewhere, well that's when the trouble will begin.

And you just know, one of these guys is going to do something idiotic. a 24-person crew with five cameras rolling at all times may be too tempting for some in Bengal-dom.

Speaking of the artist formerly known as Chad Johnson, if you were going to legally change your name, wouldn't you fill out the form with the exact name you wanted to change it to? Apparently, Chad didn't do so well in spelling during his school days. For instead of filing for the name Ocho Cinco (which is what he believes '85' means in Spanish. It doesn't. Ocho Cinco means 'Eight Five". But we digress) Chad filled out the paperwork requesting "Ochocinco". And according to the NFL tonight, that's exactly how his name will appear on the back of his jersey and in all licensing products. Maybe he doesn't care. I don't.

To get you going into your Friday, how about a little vintage 80's. Nothing cheesier than the Italian disco classic (sung incidentally by a man from Northern Ireland) 'Tarzan Boy". The artist? Baltimora.

I think Alka Seltzer used this song for a commercial back in the '90's.

ESPN's John Clayton likes the Bengals in 2009, or so he says in this story.

I'm talking sports Saturday & Sunday on 700 WLW in Cincinnati. Saturday, I'm on from 3p-6p and my guests include former Bengal Stanford Jennings, he of the long KO return for a touchdown in the Bengals Super Bowl loss to the 49ers in 1989. Current Bengal, guard Andrew Whitworth, will join me as well. Sunday's line-up coming up shortly.