THE BROO VIEW with Ken Broo

Good Monday Morning!

48 hours ago, no one could have picked PGA touring pro, Stewart Cink, out of a police line-up. He should get down on his knees and thank Tom Watson for over shooting the green on an eight iron approach in Sunday's regulation final hole. If Watson gets up and down in two from his fairway shot, Cink goes back to being what he's always been to everyone except family members and golf freaks: Mister X.

Tom Watson has no one to blame for his British Open loss than himself. "Would have been a helluva story", Watson said in his post round news conference Sunday. No lie.

Now, to your Cincinnati Reds.

You can choose two roads to travel in life: the road of hope or the road of despair. The worst kind of hope, of course, is false hope. But despair will eat you alive.

So if you had to choose a road to travel today and the journey involves the 2009 Cincinnati Reds, which road would you choose? History would lead us to the road of despiair. This team is 5 1/2 games out of first place in arguably the worst division in baseball. And the last time the Reds had a whiff of the playoffs is ten years ago. Since then, there’s been a lot of false hope and a lot of bad baseball. Prepare to Win, Ready to Win, the Reds have had their share of pre-season slogans. There’s been plenty of pre-season hype. Junior arrives. Pete Harnisch is just like the Harnisch of 1999. Ramon Ortiz and Ben Weber are here, just two years removed from winning a World Series. Here come Gary Majewski and Bill Bray, the final pieces required for a playoff run in 2006. The list is long, the payoffs were few. Actually, we became Bernie Madoff city. Forget payoffs, we were ripped off.

Its tough being a fan in a town like Cincinnati, isn’t it? We want to believe. We get caught up in the hoopla and even the most gullible of us knows the let down is coming. Now that we’ve established what we are, the only thing to haggle over is the date of the let down. Big market teams like the Yankees and Red Sox win World Series titles. Small market teams like Rams and Colts and Steelers win Super Bowls. And we produce generations of fans who know nothing but losing. So goes life on the road of despair.

Except today, here now, the sign posts along the road of hope. Not for 2010 or 2011. We may all be out of work by then,, hopefully along with us, some of the idiots we continue to send to Washington. Today’s hope, comes in the form of history. It’s the belief of what can happen, with a little hope and a little help.

Sign post number one, along he road of hope. Your 1973 Cincinnati Reds. Back in the bad old days, of two divisions and no Wild Card, the Reds were DOA, eleven games back on July 1st. The Dodgers were running away with the division champonship. But the Reds kicked it into third gear, won 60-of their final 86 and won the division by three and a half games. The won, despite having three of their everyday eight, Dennis Menke Cesar Geronimo and Bobby Tolan hit a combined .204. Sound familiar? They won on the strength of good, not great starting pitching and incinnati. He went 12-6 for the Reds. To get Norman, the Reds sent pitching prospect Mike Johnson to San Diego, along with outfielder Gene Locklear. Both were thought of highly by the Reds organization. Neither amounted to anything.

Fast forward to the 1989 Toronto Blue Jays. They managed to win only 38 of their first 83 games. Yet, they went 51-28 in the final 12 weeks and won the AL East by a couple of games.. At the trade deadline that year, the Blue Jays picked up Mookie Wilson from the Mets. His .298 hitting the rest of the season was a big reason why the Jays qualified for the playoffs. The price to get him? Pitcher Jeff Musselman and prospect Mike Brady. Musselman, incidentally, won a grand total of six games with the Mets. Brady, never played a game in the majors.

Here’s another sign post on the road to hope. In 1993, the Atlanta Braves were ten out with 65 games to play. 55-42 on July 23. They won 49 of their final 65 and won the West by a game over the Giants. On July 18th of that year, 16 years ago yesterday, the Braves made a trade for Fred McGriff, got him from the Padres for three guys who could have gotten lost in a phone booth, including Vince Moore, a highly regarded rookie in the Braves organization at the time. Net result: McGriff hits .310, with 19 home runs and 55 rbi in 68 games with the Braves.. Oh and by the way, hit .435 against the Phillies in the NLCS that season.

That’s the road to hope today. But none of that happens with the teams in question being proactive, seizing the moment. You’ve heard this a lot in the past couple of weeks, but it’s true. A team doesn’t pick which season its contends. Fate determines that for it. In 1990, the Reds were picked to finish third, at best in their division. We know that story very well. Did anyone this year predict that Joey Votto would miss more than a month with stress? Anybody out there call the Edinson Volquez injuries? Any genius see the Jay Bruce collapse back in January? Who’s to say things like that don’t happen in 2010? Who’s to say every prospect coveted by the Reds blossoms at the exact time and we get another 1990 season here in 2010. Or every prospect blossoms at the exact time and the Cardinals or Cubs or Astros are just that much better.

The road to hope is the only road worth traveling. But the team you’re traveling with has to give you hope along the way. It’s called living in the moment. When you constantly play the ‘wait until next year’ game, more often than not, ‘next year’ never comes. We’re waiting now on Walt Jocketty and Bob Castellini. Let’s see if they’re worth waiting for.