THE BROO VIEW with Ken Broo

Just back from a quick trip to the East Coast. Did New York, theatre, couple of restaurants and the obligatory diner trips. And I also caught a ballgame, the Mets against the Cardinals at Citi Field. Great new ballpark, resurrecting the style and thankfully not the smell of the old Ebbets Field. I’m not old enough to remember the Brooklyn Dodgers, but apparently Brooklyn and Ebbets Field had a smell all their own.

Anyhow, I watched the Mets smoke the Cardinals 11-0 on Wednesday night and then get trounced themselves by the Yankees on Friday night. And out there, the fans are just like you and me. Well, OK, perhaps we don’t use four letter words as verbs as much as they do. But in the sense that fans want their teams to win and want action if they don’t, we’ve got some common ground with New Yorkers.

The Mets are banged up. They want their general manager to make a deal, today, last Thursday if possible, to get another big bat in their line up. The Yankees have some pitching problems, they want another arm for the rotation, couple for the bullpen and if their GM can find someone to replace outfielder Xavier Nady, great, go get him.

Like you and me, maybe, fans out there believe there are teams and GM’s all over baseball just waiting to be fleeced. They get a star player or two for a couple of broken down veterans and minor leaguers that are more like suspects instead of prospects.

You know, like Edwin Encarnacion and Mike Lincoln in exchange for Kevin Youkilis.

So I’m sitting at this game and the guy next to me strikes up a conversation. Wants to know where I’m from. I guess I didn’t look or act like a ntative, even though I spent 17-years of my life, a long time ago, living in that area of the country. Guy says, ‘Cincinnati?’ I said ‘yeah’. And after we got by the initial jokes of Bengals arrests and Pete Rose’s gambling, he wants to know if Aaron Harang was available. Because he’d heard on a sports talk radio show out there that the Reds would be willing to deal Harang to the Mets in exchange for somebody named Argemis Reyes and a left handed pitcher in Double-A who had just blown out his elbow. You think sports talk radio is anything around here? Out there think Lance McAllister on steroids, 24-7, 365.

So anyway, I tell this guy Sal, from Bensonhurst, I said I didn’t think Harang’s available,,but after checking Harang’s pitching line the next night, I began to think it wasn’t such a bad idea.

But the truth is nobody is trading anyone right now. And yeah, every fans wants action, deals, call ups, try outs, imports from Japan. But it won’t happen, not yet anyway. Look at the standings today. 14 teams are within 6 games of the lead, or closer. Even more can still think of themselves as wild card contenders. The Reds are at ‘500’ and only 2.5 games back, and right in the thick of things in the National League Wild Card Race.

Deal now and get what, from whom? This is the time of the year when baseball resembles a contract negotiation. Neither side wants to make the first move. How much do you want? What are you offering? Who’s on first? I got it, you take it. That’s why mid season deals are done as close to the trading deadline as possible. Teams that need will offer more, teams that are out of it will take less than what they will now, a little more than a month away from deadline day.

What you get now is Norris Hopper for Corky Miller, not even a seismic blip in Louisville.

Barring a total implosion, the Reds are going to be in this race at least until the trade deadline. So you have to figure a trade for an upgrade will be coming. But the question is, at what price? Bailey? Stubbs? Arroyo? Pick a name. But make sure it’s a good one. That’s the only way you’ll get someone coming here, who’ll be good enough to help.

Every so often, the Reds have night like last night. They put up five or more runs and you think everything is going to be OK. But it’s not. They pay the price, far too often, of not addressing their glaring offensive needs in this past off season. They pay the price for letting their farm system go into atrophy in the mid-90’s to 2003. And now, if they really want to win this season, they’ll pay the price. It’s the cost of doing business.