Give me a number ....

Hors d'oeuvres are over ... now if I could just get the kitchen help to hurry up with the main course of summer I'd be a lot happier!! It's not that I mind being marinated in humidity ... I much prefer it to being chilled to the bone. However the young minds I am entrusted to engage are deep-fried after a scorching Memorial Day weekend (and some in more ways than one!) and with our district-wide exams already completed there is a serious lack of motivational heat. So we'll simmer for the rest of the week before the school year is reduced to a picnic and some farewells on Friday. Alas not all is so back-burner depressing .... It's Tuesday which means there is some Mad Men on tap! Fill 'er up!!!

Today is the 50th birthday of Eric Davis, the .44 Magnum, Eric the Red, E.D., Comeback Player of the Year, Mr. 30/30, owner of Dave Stewart ..... I could go on but I think you get the picture. E.D. is and was my personal all-time favorite Cincinnati Red. When you're 13 years old and there is a player stealing 80 bases (not a typo ... in the early 1980's before steroids and tiny stadia, teams encouraged base stealing. The Reds had several accomplished thieves back in the day like Dave - drunk like Tom - Collins, Eddie Milner, Gary Redus & even Chris Sabo!) and banging out 30 home runs a year, that guy is going to become your dude. E.D. was the originator of swag in my book, and man did I need some swag at 13! I imitated his unique batting stance with great success in our front yard wiffle ball games (though it didn't translate over to baseball - go figure) and liked to tap my glove on my thigh when catching fly balls (that little piece of outfield swag did translate into baseball!). I was 16 and sitting in Riverfront Stadium on June 2nd, 1989 (Sorry Mom .. I don't know where I said I was going that night but I definitely broke your "Don't drive out of city or on the highway" rules) with three friends when Eric the Red hit for the cycle - from the green seats we bowed Wayne's World style to show how unworthy we were to be a witness. Most of all I admired his fearlessness on the field, slamming into walls at full speed to make a catch and diving head first at every opportunity. His body wasn't built to cash the punishment checks he was writing and he never was able to play more than 135 games in a season. His first inning home run against Dave Stewart in game one and lacerated kidney in game four were bookends to the 1990 World Series Championship. While Davis was doing great things under the flying C, I was journeying through middle and high school headed to college. He left Cincinnati in 1991 (when I left UC for Miami) and returned in 1996 to win the Comeback Player of the Year. Today I took the Eric Davis quiz on Enquirer.com and this is what it said after getting nine of ten questions correct (I missed one about E.D.'s high school alums in the majors ... but I did guess one answer luckily!), "Home run! Congratulations! You might know even more about Eric Davis than his family does." Duh!!!! Adolescent boys have a way of remembering things they idolized. Happy Birthday Eric!!! Another piece of my childhood which reminds of Father Time's relentless march through my life. Now if I could only find my .44 Magnum Eric Davis poster, I know the perfect spot in my house!!!

A Japanese cell phone maker is going to release a new handset which comes complete with a radiation detector. A map and some common sense would be more valuable. Don't cell phones give off radiation themselves? Haven't cell phones been linked to several types of cancer from these radiation emissions? Will your phone detect itself? Protecting people from themselves is a fools errand. If you don't know where the Fukushima reactors are located, wouldn't Darwin want you dead anyway? I'm getting dumber as I type.

The Reds have gone 2-2 since we last chatted. To go over all four games would require more time than I have available today. So here's the Cliff/Spark Notes version of what you need to know ... kind of a 2012 Reds for Dummies primer. If the Reds hit homeruns, they will probably win. If not, they will probably lose. The Reds are 21-5 when they get funkblasted, and 6-16 when the powers out. Great American Small Park gave up 29 HRs in the seven game home stand (including one when Smokin' Todd Frazier threw his bat at the ball!) so bet the Reds to win at home. On the road take the moneyline and the Reds opponent. They hit .203 with RISP (take out Vottomatic's .333 RISP and the average drops to .195) and by the season's quarter pole it's pretty much what you see is what you're gonna get. The starting pitchers' Dr. Milton/Mr. Rijo personality disorder means each game is like a box of chocolates. Consistently inconsistent is the grade right now and in the NL Central that's good enough for a 1/2 game lead over the Cardinals.

Now on to the important stuff .....

What's your price? Seriously .. we all have one. Decisions and actions we wouldn't normally make require only the promise of green to persuade us to do otherwise. Desperation, or lack thereof, can certainly cause the number of Benjamin's being discussed to fluctuate, but even in those seedy intrigues of human morality we don't like to discuss in polite company there is still a number. Peggy's number to walk, prodded by the old leaky bladder man Freddy Rumsen, was $19,000 ($135,000 in today's cash). Pete suggested Joan's number to prostitute herself was $50,000 ($355,000 today .. take that Ashley Dupre!!! You only got $4,300 for a night with the Governor of New York ... RIP-OFF!!!! Joan slept with the head of the Jaguar Dealer's Association and destroyed your number!!! Who's the cheap slut now???). Lane, desperate to conceal his embezzlement, proved he is Pete's weasley equal by nixing a one-time cash splash and planting a 5% partnership seed in Joan's head which, if grown to full size, would shade his own number of self-serving greed. Don has a number too, but it's based on his ego and pride. He wants the whole Jaguar account place at his feet while the office supplicates to his ring of creativity. He needed to prove he could still win a client over with his idealized commercial visions of seductresses on wheels, and Joan's Cleopatra turn (one of Pete's best evil genius turns to date!! Joan is smarter than her breasts she looks. Cleopatra traded sex for power first to Julius Caesar and then to Mark Antony. Pete + Lane = Joan's name on the front door) sullied his triumph. This episode was really about Joan and Peggy living out the ethos of Betty Frieden and Gloria Steinem in a way to strip Don of the important women in his life again. Don may be headed to Casanova's Hall of Fame with all the notches on his belt, but the women he truly values in life have always deserted or disappointed him. In this one episode, Megan, having already bolted the SCDP offices for Broadway dreams, hopes to head to Boston for four months, Joan sells the one thing Don has never been able to sweet talk from her, and protege Peggy abandons him for a rival agency. Don's power and creativity are waning ... Pete's high level business transactions and Ginsberg's creativity are slowly chipping away at Don's aura. When Don realized his Hail Mary attempt to stop Joan's night with a whale had fallen to the turf, his ego-soothing Jaguar triumph deflated like a three-day old birthday balloon. Peggy's lightning bolt to Cutler Gleason and Chaough only served to treble Don's mommy abandonment issues. Where does Don go from here? Out the window like his silhouette in the intro? We won't have to wait too long ... only two episodes left. Bring 'em on!!!

Good Tuesday effort after a long weekend ... More tomorrow. C-YA!!