A cross the river at the ballpark, they are singing the National Anthem. Here on the Kentucky side of the river, a vaguely familiar rock song is wafting from the riverboat moored nearby. Adding to the cacophony a dozen geese meandering on the water nearby are honking quietly among themselves.

At the Great American Ballpark, they get to “… the rockets red glare …,” and fireworks shoot out of what looks to be a riverboat’s smokestack.

The last place Cincinnati Reds are playing the Chicago Cubs in a six-game series that will close out the regular season for both teams. It’s not been a good year for the hometown club. Abysmal is the word. Two nights later in their final game of the season, they will lose their 100th game.

I was taking this in while bobbing in my kayak where the Licking River flows into the Ohio.

The 300-mile river flows north through Kentucky and enters the Ohio directly across from downtown Cincinnati. Nineteenth-century frontiersmen called the small river Great Salt Lick Creek for the saline tributaries that flowed into it and attracted animals to the salt deposits.

Just upstream on the Licking is the fieldhouse for the Cincinnati Jr. Rowing Club.

I’d launched three miles upstream and while paddling down the small river, I’d passed about a dozen rowing shells, most of them powered by high school kids.

Male and female teams in their eight- and four-person slivers of boat glided by noiselessly, looking like some giant caterpillars skimming across the water.

On Monday, the afternoon before, I’d been in the stadium with three friends for a twilight Reds-Cubs game. Though the game wasn’t much to watch — neither team had a .300 hitter in the lineup — it was a lovely evening. The game seemed more like a family outing than a sporting event, like a trip to the park.

Kids wearing Reds caps and baseball gloves stood at the edge of the field hoping for an errant ball or a kind word from one of the gods stretching and jogging on the field.

After warming up the infield before each inning, the Reds’ first baseman would occasionally lob the ball into the sparsely populated stands.

We were fortunate to sit behind a lifelong Reds fan, who has been coming to games since he was 6.

“I’m waiting on management to offer an apology for this year’s season,” he said. Not likely, he told us.

Our neighbor waxed nostalgic about the glory days, the 70s, when the Big Red Machine, with the likes of “Charlie Hustle” (Pete Rose), Johnny Bench, Joe Morgan and Tony Perez, was a dominant force in Major League Baseball.

Rose, who once came to Columbus to speak at a Boys and Girls Club fundraiser, remains a controversial figure.

A conspicuous presence in the MLB record book — most hits, most at bats, an all-star at five positions — Rose was banned from Baseball’s Hall of Fame for gambling on games in which he played or coached.

Clearly Pete has his adherents. At the game we attended, a man walked past wearing a red T-shirt that read, “I’m with Pete, $200 on the Reds.”

I turned the kayak upstream and began paddling back to the takeout. At the rowing club, the last of the scullers, a girls team, was carrying a boat up the hillside.

As I paddled up the river, the noise of the stadium and the riverboat faded. A waxing gibbous moon* had risen overhead, and in the fading light, nature quietly reasserted its primacy.

*Tonight is the Full Harvest Moon.

Birney Imes ([email protected]) is the former publisher of The Dispatch.

Birney Imes III is the immediate past publisher of The Dispatch.