Ocho cinco, cinco victorias para los rojos y las cucarachas

Motivated by a near car breakdown text from South Florida last night, I had to brush up on my Espanol in case I had to canvass neighborhoods from North Miami to Boca Raton hunting down my buddy Jethro. His Jeep pulled through though and the crisis was averted so I can revert to English. Gracias!

Ocho Cinco
Ochocinco sadly reported on the OCNN (Ocho Cinco News Network) that his luxury SUV was broken into Tuesday night. Someone with sticky fingers (and a brick to break windows) made off with Chad's wallet containing his L's, some credit cards and cash, along with his iPod and most importantly his Starbucks Gold Card. It's good to know the police in Boston catch petty criminals at the same rate Ocho caught passes from pretty boy Tom Brady ... which is to say the snatch and grabbers are still on the loose. Chad was distraught over losing his hard earned Starbucks card believing it to be made of 24k gold ... just like his grill. Ocho heard the crooks smashing his window, but lacked the speed to catch up to the bandits. Around the NFL defensive coordinators and cornerbacks all agreed Ocho could have tracked down the Gold Card desperados if he still had some wheels. No truth to the rumor the thugs left behind a a cardboard goals chart with a checkmark in the "Punk Chad" box. Next item on the list left behind by the thieves .... driveway sit-ups with TO. Good luck guys!!

Las Cucarachas
******** WARNING: TECHNICAL POLITICAL DISCUSSION BELOW********
I know ... I shouldn't insult cockroaches by comparing them to a group of Republican legislators in Columbus. These representatives preference for scurrying away from bright lights of legality must be purely coincidental. The latest attempt by Kasich's cronies to take rights away from Ohioans was the passing of Senate Bill 295 (SB295). Oh ... you haven't heard of SB295?? Well that's just how they like things up in Columbus these days! To understand SB295 we have to travel back to House Bill 194 (HB194), which was purportedly designed to prevent voter fraud ahead of this fall's Presidential election. Some key provisions in HB194 were the shortening of the absentee voting period, eliminating walk-in voting at county Board of Elections offices in the three days prior to the election and prohibiting poll workers from directing voters to their correct precinct. They were looking into adding poll taxes and literacy tests until they were reminded both have been illegal since the mid-1960's. Now if you are a patriot like myself, you might be wondering why our state government would be trying to restrict people's ability to vote. Hold that thought ... we'll come back to it. HB194 was passed in 2011, but opponents gathered enough signatures to keep the law from being effective until Ohio's citizens could hold a referendum (Teacher's note: Referendum = vote by citizens to repeal a law passed by a legislature) vote on HB194. Fearing the referendum vote would be successful and HB 194 would be repealed, Kasich's cronies began working on a new piece of legislation, SB295, which would repeal some parts of HB194 and therefore make the referendum invalid (Procedural note: the law the referendum was attempting to repeal (HB194) would no longer exist, therefore an entirely new referendum process would have to be initiated to repeal only those portions of the law still in existence). While SB295 did remove some parts of HB194, the restrictions on absentee voting (limiting the days you could vote absentee from 35 to 16 and prohibiting county board of elections from mailing absentee voter forms out), limiting voting at County Board of Elections and eliminating precinct directions from poll workers were all left intact. SB295 was rapidly passed through the General Assembly and signed by the Governor even though constitutional lawyers warned of the legal implications of repealing portions of a law being contested through referendum. Now both laws and the referendum will be headed to court where our state government will spend hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not more, trying to defend partisan legislation which limits voting. Egyptians were triumphantly waving blue-inked fingers while here in the good ole' USA were trying to make it harder for people to vote. So ask yourself why would anyone try to limit voting??? Election turnout is usually under 50% and you want to make it harder to vote??? Who usually votes absentee in Ohio??? Before I'm branded a bleeding heart liberal (I'm anything but), go do your research. If you're willing to buy excuses like "voting in Board of Election offices takes away from their preparations for voting day" and "if people cared enough about voting they would know their precinct's polling location", then I have some beachfront property on the beautiful Mill Creek I'd like to sell you. Pollution free!!! No carcinogens in that water!!! You can catch fresh fish in the afternoon and fry them up for dinner ... just ignore the mercury sparks!!! My dream before I die is for Americans to take back our government from career partisan politicians (on both sides of the aisle!!!) and allow democracy to flourish.

Cinco victorias para los Rojos
Ladies and Gentlemen .... I introduce to you .... from Toms River, NJ .... Smokin' Todd Frazier!!! I'll admit his game winning blast was more of a game winning GASP (Great American Small Park .. Thanks Doc!!), but who's arguing??? The Reds got great pitching from Arroyo, Arrendondo and Chapman (pick the American from that group and win fabulous prizes!) to beat Tommy Hanson and the Braves. The bats ... somnombulant (def: walking while asleep) ... until Frazier's GASP in the bottom of the ninth to give the Reds their fifth victory on the trot. The Reds are still a half game back because the Padres hit like the Reds and lost their third in a row to the Cardinals. It's been a good stretch of wins against quality teams, but I still question the Reds ability to get on an extended run. Los Rojos are more likely to be a grind-it-out team trying to win series after series without ripping off a ten or twelve game winning streak. They just don't hit enough to overcome a poor starting pitching performance. While the hurlers have looked good the last five nights, you can't expect one and two run outings for the remaining three quarters of the season. As Memorial Day kicks off the traditional summer season it will be interesting to see if the Reds make a move for a bat to stick behind Vottomatic. For now I'm going to enjoy the ride!!!

Done for the day. Meeting with the Principal of Clark about our summer schedule. Five will get you ten that it turns into a disciplinary run down of my players transgressions. Fun times!!!