Houston, We Got Bigger Problems Than the Astrodome’s Faked Moon Landing
by William Meiners
Historians and statisticians could speak to the Reds seven straight road losses to begin May. I’d have to look it up. I did not. Friday, May 8, 2026, was our 15th wedding anniversary. Joellen and I exchanged vows on Mother’s Day 2011, and my brother Mick “married us” (as sick as that sounds).
To celebrate our “crystal anniversary,” rather than wrestling for a table on graduation weekend in our college town, we headed south for 20 minutes to Gratiot County. We had a cheap bottle of wine and good Italian food in St. Louis, Michigan. The town may be best known for an environmental disaster in the 1970s, courtesy of the former Michigan Chemical Corporation, which killed lots of cows, poisoned the Pine River, and surely caused cancer among townsfolk. A large fence still surrounds the St. Louis Superfund site. But the bottle of red is priced right at “our Italian restaurant.”
I credit Joellen for keeping me alive and out of jail. She shrugged it off as we clinked glasses, probably saying, “Whatever, Bob.” But I may have checked out from the boredom and loneliness had we not unionized with a hers and ours family. And for that I count my lucky stars.
Our 20-minute wait was more like 35 as I checked the Astros-Reds score on my phone. Houston launched a pair of two-run homers in the second and the sixth. Does it matter which hitters? Reds pitching can make many lineups look like the 1927 Yankees. The home crowd showered boos in a 10-0 loss where Jose Trevino pitched again! As a catcher, he’s surely leading the league in pitching appearances, now accounting for four trips to the mound. With a 33-mph fast ball, safety protocols should allow him to keep his protective gear and mask on.
In team sports, even the desperation of personal existence, mounting consecutive losses can feel like exposure. How lucky were the Reds in April? Wasn’t that supposed to be the cruelest month? And the blame goes beyond players. Is Tito Francona, the future Hall-of-Fame manager, in trouble? And what about these small market owners?
Honestly, Marge Schott is the only Reds owner I could name right now. Known for a simpatico with Hitler (a man with “good ideas” who “went too far”), Large Marge may not have known the single-nutted dictator studied southern state Jim Crow laws before establishing his good ideas. For all her income and ignorance, she’d likely sit on Trump’s cabinet today if not for her current residence in Hell. Perhaps tasked with dismantling the Department of Education, she’d let her Saint Bernard Schottzie shit all over the U.S. Constitution. Not just the outfield of old Riverfront Stadium. But I digress.
Now in Great American Ball Park (so Trumpian) the Reds playing host to the Astros was the featured Game of the Week on Saturday. Houston is underwater record wise and I told Jo they should call it the “game of the weak.” I repeated, “Game of the weak!” Unfortunately, she’d turned her hearing aids down to the “do not disturb” setting. Given the harmonic nature of homonyms, a text from living room to kitchen might have better landed the joke.
Young Chase Burns, pitching better than any starter on the Reds roster, gave up a fifth-inning homer. His boys rallied for three runs in the bottom half of that frame. And that was all the scoring for the day. Good God almighty the Reds win their first game of the month on May 9th. I’m still married, definitely not dead, and a Saturday late afternoon game seeps into a pleasant evening for this house of three in Mount Pleasant.
On Sunday, per a household tradition, our matriarch and savior opened Mother’s Day gifts accompanied by Pink Floyd crooning, “Mother do you think they’ll try to break my balls? Ooh, ahh, mother should I build the wall?”
Early afternoon, Andrew Abbott, an All-Star last season the Reds opening day starter this year, had his breaking ball working. Still getting sorted out this spring, AA pitched six solid, scoreless innings. His teammates tallied three in the fourth and one each in the fifth and sixth innings. With a trio of bullpen pitchers holding down the ’Stros (not allowing a single hit), Cincinnati won 5-0, taking two of three from Houston. A return to normalcy? Maybe. Or just a Sunday prayer answered for what had been our wretched Reds.
William Meiners is the editor of Sport Literate. Among his summer 2026 plans are the documentation of 33 Reds’ series. That should be about 600 to 700 words every few days. If you don’t expect too much breakdown or analysis, outside of his own troubled head, you may not be disappointed. From losing streaks through high-water marks, he’ll follow the club, sometimes literally, from the reluctant spring of early May through the dog days of August. Then he’s off to something else.