So when Reds fan tire of chili that's flavored with cinnamon and plopped down atop innocent spaghetti, they can get goetta hot dogs, goetta hamburgers, even goetta pizza. Did we mention goetta Reubens?
Small wonder, then, that Cincinnati seems to be the one city in America where you can't get the Food Channel on your hotel TV.
Then there's the portion of the Queen City that borders the Ohio River, a body of water the indigenous Native Americans called "place where driftwood, the homeless, and drab concrete converge."
Far be it from a Philadelphian to criticize any other city's urban waterfront, but Cincinnati's appears to have been devised by the architect of Riverfront and Veterans Stadiums on a bad day.
The Cincinnati shoreline is an endless ribbon of concrete - pavement, the foundations to unfinished buildings, the foundations to finished buildings.
At night, from the Roebling Suspension Bridge, you can see the fires of encamped homeless on the shore. Some homeless also live on the bridge, which can enliven a late-night walk to Kentucky.
Pete's Rose Garden
One of Great America's few redeeming qualities is the adjoining Reds Hall of Fame and Museum. There, through a rear window, you can see a Rose Garden that sits at the spot where Pete Rose's record 4,192d hit landed.
Another of its exhibits is a display on the 1869 Reds, the first professional baseball team. The payroll for that team's starters, by the way, was $10,500, or roughly what Ryan Howard spends each week on hoagies.
That team's catcher was Doug Allison, a Philadelphian, no doubt lured here by the goetta.
Some ballpark musings
Unlike Citizens Bank Park, where the concession stands all have Philadelphia-themed names, they don't fuss with such things here. Two side-by-side kiosks were called "Beer and Liquor" and "Beer Only."
