What a weekend for Bob Boone. What a remarkable three days of unmatched Boone-speak. The 1969 Stanford graduate used his degree in psychology for all it was worth between Friday and Sunday.

If you didn't like it - if, as usual, you thought Dr. Bob needed counseling - tough. Boone doesn't care about perceptions.

"I'll always take the pressure off the players," Boone said Sunday. "The game is not about protecting me. It's about getting the best out of the players."

So that's it. When Boone praises Danny Graves for allowing six runs in six innings, you think he's certifiable.

When he says he'd rather have a team with heart than a team that can bunt (or field, or hit the cutoff man or deliver a hit with someone on second or third base), you'd like to have him committed.

Or, better, fired.

Method to madness

PHOTO GALLERY

Photos of Sunday's game

Boone has a method to what you think is his madness. He says this stuff because he thinks if he didn't, his players might cave. In Redsland, it's better to feel good than to be good. "(I) pull for guys instead of getting mad at them," Boone explained.

The touchy-feely approach worked the last two days, and four of the last six. Either that, or the two opponents - L.A. and the Padres - were more adept at being inept than the Reds.

You could hope, as Boone does, that the Reds' first three weeks were an "aberration," a worst-case jumble of injuries, horror-show starting pitching and general buffoonery.

Or you could look at the last two days and see Knothole baseball. San Diego pitchers walked 20 Reds and hit four more.

On Sunday, the Reds scored four times in the fifth with one base hit leaving the infield. In the seventh, Padres pinch-hitter Keith Lockhart singled, then dusted himself off with his back to the play, as the relay throw skipped past - count 'em - three Reds infielders and all the way to the wall just beyond the visitors dugout. The Padres made the Reds look meticulous.

So when Boone decides he prefers players with hearts and not heads, you're ready to kick the dog. You're ready to kick his dog.

When your team is last in the NL in fielding, strikes out nine times a game and thinks a sacrifice is giving up the post-game food spread, and you practice the Alan Alda method of managing, people are going to wonder.

"Three out of eight are 22 years old," Boone said of his lineup. "If you take Lark (Barry Larkin) and (Junior) Griffey out of it, we've got the youngest team in baseball."

Boone thinks young players press enough without the manager making it worse.

Actually, only two Reds starters on Sunday were 22. The average age of the Sunday eight was 27.

And if you continue to be publicly patient and supportive of your players' frequent, glaring goofs, you risk them taking you for granted. Ask Dick LeBeau.

Don't expect Boone to change, though. He will go down swinging a soft stick. Boone knows what he knows. What you think you know doesn't concern him.

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E-mail pdaugherty@enquirer.com

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