Somewhere in my grandfather’s apartment, there exists a small, dusty and gilded picture frame. The frame itself is actually rather ordinary and forgettable, its borders and backings being totally unadorned and wholly plain. However, what makes this frame so utterly special and memorable is that, resting at the center of its dusty mass, resides what is easily my favorite photo of all time: an image of my grandfather, my twin brother and I smiling while in the stands of a Cincinnati Reds game. 

I cannot quite describe just how invaluable this singular photo is to me on a sentimental level, every pixel of it bringing back memories of a joyous time that I have no reason to expect I will be able to return. I say this not only because my grandfather is sadly now much older and no longer has the ability to do anything adventurous or special with my family, but also because I fear that baseball may cease to make me smile in the near future. 

While this may sound hyperbolic and overly dramatic, as a diehard Cincinnati Reds fan, I genuinely do not know when I will be able to find myself enjoying the act of watching Cincinnati baseball again like I seem to be doing in that photo. To be blunt, the Cincinnati Reds have been an absolutely abysmal excuse for a franchise for as long as I can remember. Over the course of my lifetime, they have had only six winning seasons; they have only made the playoff four times, getting knocked out in the first round in each one; and they have wasted the talents of arguably some of the game’s best players in recent memory: Joey Votto, Adam Dunn and Johnny Cueto, just to name a few. 

This team ethos of sustained disappointment is what makes this current season all the more infuriating, as the Reds, for once in my lifetime, actually entered the season with high hopes and equally high expectations. This abnormally positive attitude was not wholly unfounded in the slightest, as the Reds were coming off their first winning season in years (finishing 82-80 in 2023),  and had a tremendous young core anchored by budding superstars Matt McClain and Elly de la Cruz. They effectively had the whole city’s support behind them. 

Yet, as the tone of this article likely suggests, in a tragic but to-be-expected manner, the same-old, perennially-disappointing Reds showed up for the 2024 season. In their defense, a not insignificant amount of the team’s stars went down early in the year with injuries, as shortstop Matt McClain has missed the entire season due to a shoulder injury that he suffered during spring training; slugger Christian Encarnación-Strand saw his season cut short in late April after he was hit on the wrist with an errant pitch; and clubhouse leader T.J. Friedl has found himself on the bench an innumerable amount of times during the season as a result of a wide variety of injuries. In all honesty, it would take all day to continue to list all the injuries the Reds have suffered this campaign, and that does not even begin to address the 80-game P.E.D. suspension that was handed out to the team’s projected starting third baseman Noelvi Marte.

Moreover, those seldom few players whohave been healthy for this season have not provided much more value than if Cincinnati had trotted out their obviously extensive injured list onto the diamond. I say this because almost everyone who contributed to last year’s success has seemingly and inexplicably taken a major step back, as outfielder Will Benson has seen his K-Rate soar up to a pathetic league-worst mark; closer Alexis Diaz has transformed from an All-Star closer into a man that I would never have let near a mound in a one-run game; splash free-agent signing Jeimer Candelario has looked outright awful and confused for most of the season; and Noelvi Marte has looked like a shell of his old self since he came back from suspension.  

Put all of this together — the injuries, regression and outright failure to meet expectations in any way — and it tragically seems like all the hope of yesteryear has totally disappeared, every last droplet of optimism having evaporated into the unforgiving and cruel Cincinnati air. Sadly, this whole season just feels like it is going to be the sort of monumental step-back that a franchise inevitably struggles to come back from, as not only have the Reds seen all their hard-earned momentum ripped away from them, but the sorts of injuries and regressions they have suffered seem to me to be ones that tend to linger for a while — one doesn’t just bounce back from a broken wrist or a year in which you lead the majors in strikeouts. 

I guess this then all leads to the simple yet deathly important question that every Reds fan is asking themselves right now: Now what? Does the organization completely clean house by firing manager David Bell and trading away some of the team’s core? Does the front office gamble and keep this team intact with the hopes that they’ll bounce back sometime soon? Unfortunately, if history serves as any sort of predictor, whatever direction the Reds move in will likely turn out to be the wrong one.