The Cincinnati Reds endured a demoralizing Fourth of July week trip to Miller Park. And, that was before reliever Brian Shackelford was arrested on a charge of third-degree sexual assault.

After losing the first of three games to the Brewers, Reds centerfielder Ken Griffey, Jr., vented a bit of Brew City frustration to Hal McCoy, the Hall of Fame baseball writer from the Dayton Daily News.

Before we get to that, a little context is necessary: Griffey has never been a fan of Milwaukee.

Several years ago, while standing around the batting cage at County Stadium, he asked a Milwaukee reporter "What is there to do here? This place is boring. Next time I come, I'm bringing my kids. All I do is sit in the room and play Nintendo, so I might as well have the kids along."

After the Reds lost the series opener Monday afternoon, Griffey told McCoy that he proposed to his wife, Melissa, during a trip to Milwaukee in 1992.

"I can't believe I brought her here and asked her to marry me here,'' Griffey told McCoy. "If I had known, I never would have done it. Not here. Not in Milwaukee. Nothing goes right here."

Griffey and the Reds have lost five of their last six games in Milwaukee, but the bad karma runs deeper than that. In 1999, the Reds came to town needing to take two of three games from the Brewers in order to claim the National League wild-card. They won one game, then lost a one-game playoff to the New York Mets.

"Ain't nothing good happened in this city since (the proposal)," Griffey told McCoy, again referring to his wife. "You know what? She ain't been back since. She won't even come back. I asked her to come on this trip to Milwaukee and Atlanta and she said, 'No, I'm going to the Bahamas.'"

Shackelford, who was arrested after the Brewers' 13-inning victory Wednesday night, was released on Thursday afternoon and is scheduled to appear at Milwaukee County District Attorney's Office on Aug. 21. Shackleford has not been charged at this point, but police are still investigating the matter.

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