By Conrad Clowers
Cincinnati Herald Sports
If you are a sports fan in Cincinnati, let’s just be honest. It’s rough. Other cities with multiple sports teams are either A) laughing at the Queen City: B) taking pity: or C) both. In this town, we now have three chances for a winner on the professional level. All three teams are either at the bottom or finished near the bottom.
Let’s start out with football. The Bengals have a fight song. The song is played after every Bengal touchdown. The first verse says, “Hear that Bengal growlin’, mean and angry, … Here he comes a prowlin’, … mean and hungry, an offensive brute, ... Run, pass or boot!’
The Bengals are 0-6. They neither seem hungry nor any type of brute. The team is the laughing stalk of the NFL are currently are one of only two NFL teams that are winless. Sometimes, Cincy make it a close game, and at other times it’s over after the first quarter. All the results have ended with Bengals losses.
With the schedule in front of Cincinnati the real threat of a win (barring an upset) may not come until December 1. At that time, Cincinnati will face the 1-4 New York Jets.
“I don’t even enjoy watching the Bengals play anymore,” said Bengal fan and season ticket holder Fred Conover. “I kept the Steeler and Patriot tickets, but sold all the rest,” Conover added.
The worst season ever posted by the Bengals was a 2-14 affair in 2002. Based on the way this season is going, with the team deficiencies and schedule, it could very well match that season or even possibly be worse.
Unlike the Bengals who did nothing in free agency, the Cincinnati Reds at least went out to get a few more players to make a difference. In the end the results mattered very little. The good news was Cincinnati didn’t finish the baseball season in last place. They also didn’t lose 90 plus games as they have recently. The bad news is the team solidified their sixth straight sub .500 season and moved up one slot finishing second to last to the Pittsburg Pirates. For much of the 2019 season, the Reds kept fans interest by finding themselves 3 to 5 games out of the Wild Card playoff spot until mid/late summer. That’s when losing streaks became longer, and the team fell further out of contention.
A few years ago, FC Cincinnati dominated the minor leagues. Soccer was the new kid on the block. If nothing else, curiosity brought out fans starved for a winner. FCC dominated the minor league teams, and the fan interest was strong. So strong Cincinnati was awarded a major league soccer franchise. The second that happened in 2019, the results went south…fast. FC Cincinnati found the going a lot tougher playing with the big boys. What was the result? Last place, of course. Of the 12 teams in the Eastern Conference, FC Cincinnati finished dead last.
One day there’s going to be a winner in this town. I hope. In 1990, the Reds had a big parade down on Fountain Square after defeating the Oakland As in the World Series. The Bengals had a parade en route to Super Bowl 16 and 23 at the same place. We can only long for those days.