Random Notes
Lots of minor points to make today, so let’s go to the notes format.
1. ESPN has fired Harold Reynolds, almost certainly for something not pertaining to his performance on the job. I’d be stunned if the M’s don’t do some checking on this and, if they’re satisfied that it wasn’t a huge deal, offered him a job. It’s very easy to imagine him broadcasting Mariner games later this year and in the future. Honestly, anything that isn’t Dave Henderson is a huge upgrade.
2. Tangotiger, one of the smartest baseball minds out there, has done a quick-and-dirty analysis on playoff odds if a team’s current winning% didn’t match their actual true talent level. BP’s playoff odds report and coolstandings.com both use past data to project the team’s odds of making the playoffs, but run into problems if a team’s past performance isn’t a perfect estimate of how they’ll play going forward. With the M’s almost certain to replace the giant sucking hole of Carl Everett before the end of the month and replace him with a real hitter, it’s very easy to say that the M’s will be a better team than their winning percentage to date would project. Here’s a summary of Tango’s point:
As I’ve shown, to have an even shot at a team that is leading the division, and you are in the bottom, and you are down by 3 wins, you simply need a team to be a true +.050 wins better than the leading team.
With the uncertainty level existing in all forecasts, you can make such a plausible assertion (every now and then).
3. Rafael Soriano’s shoulder is still bothering him, and he won’t be available tonight. The disabled list is a real possibility. The next arm up from the farm is almost certainly going to be LHP Eric O’Flaherty, who is pitching extremely well for Double-A San Antonio. He doesn’t have the same stuff that Mark Lowe does, but he throws 90-93 from the left side with a solid breaking ball and has shown both extreme groundball dominance and the ability to miss bats. If and when O’Flaherty comes up, he could easily stick for the rest of the year. It’s not improbable to think that this team’s bullpen in September will go something like Putz-Soriano-Sherrill-Lowe-O’Flaherty-Woods-Mateo, with Julio finally being relegated to the mopup duty he deserves.
4. That Lopez-Beltre scuffle I mentioned in the game thread has been uploaded online so you
can see for yourself and decide whether this was playfighting or an actual disagreement of sorts. Thanks to Jeff Sullivan for getting this up. If you’re not reading his Lookout Landing blog, you’re missing out, big time.
5. Despite any rumors you may hear, Gil Meche isn’t close to being traded. If the M’s deal him (which gets less likely with every win), it won’t be til this weekend, when they’ve had a full opportunity to evaluate their chances of making a run this year. And the talent they’re asking for in return, anyways, is likely to preclude a deal. At this point, I think Meche ends the season as a Mariner.
6. Somewhat related, as of today, the M’s are buyers, not sellers. That could change over the next week, but don’t be surprised if the M’s go trolling for another Eduardo Perez type move in the next few days. David Dellucci would make all kinds of sense right now.
Comments
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Dave,
With the M’s almost certain to replace the giant sucking hole of Carl Everett before the end of the month and replace him with a real hitter…
How do we know this is almost certain? Has Bavasi come out and stated as such?
Not publically, no. So I guess all I can say is its up to you to decide whether I’m trustworthy or not.
I know that infuriates a bunch of people, but I don’t really know what else to say.
Maybe they were upset with Harold’s coaching decisions at the All-Star Celebrity Softball Game.
Seriously, though, my understanding is that Reynolds is a very sober, religious guy. One of the old God Squadders. Real odd to see him chopped mid-season.
I certainly trust your info, was just wondering if I had missed something.
I’ve watched that Beltre-Lopez clip a hundred times over and it doesn’t look friendly to me.
3. I hate to say it, but I actually watched that game and it seemed like there was some tension between Reynolds and Kruk there as well as during the homerun contest.
Please bring Harold to our broadcast team.
HR and Kruk were going at it on the air the other day while the Baseball Tonight crew was discussing whether or not the Yankees should trade A-Rod. I’ve seen other very heated discussions between those two on different occasions as well. Is there bad blood between Kruk and HR?
How could anybody conceivably be irritated with John Kruk, a man as low key and well-informed as John Kruk? The man just reeks of professionalism.
Maybe they found out that Harold Reynolds is really the brilliant mind behind the Fire Joe Morgan blog?
I totally missed this Beltre/Lopez scuffle during the game last night. Any more info on it than the video?
I certainly hope you are right on this one, Dave. It would be like teasing kids with candy if Everett is still with this team in a month.
Perhaps the M’s are going to replace Everett with Reynolds?
The dust-up doesn’t look friendly, and neither does Pentland brushing Beltre, but you know what? It happens.
My take on Carl is that he will be gone but for a totally different reason (and a VERY cynical one at that) than any mentioned previously. I won’t share my thoughts on the matter as some people might be offended. But I think Adam Jones gets us off the hook with having Carl on the roster.
BTW: I was at the game saturday and Jones looks good live, good speed, athletic, bigger than I thought he was. He will make lot sof errors and M’s fans have little tolerance for those (we have been spoiled defense-wise the last few years) but I like him as a prospect for the future.
The dust-up doesn’t look friendly, and neither does Pentland brushing Beltre, but you know what? It happens.
Yeah. I don’t think it’s anything to obsess over. This sort of thing is like “team chemistry”…irrelevant when the team is playing well and is competitive. That’s unlike, say, a cable TV program….
Now, Carl Everett on the team IS something to obsess over….
“But I think Adam Jones gets us off the hook with having Carl on the roster.”
I have no idea what that means.
I actually really liked HR as an analyst. I really can’t stand John Kruks incoherant babbling.
re: 10
Are you trying to say that Carl will be gone because he is black? And that because Adam Jones is black is soothes the collective front office conscience to let Carl go?
If so that is just plain dumb. Last time I looked at the M’s roster it was a varitable cornucopia of non-white players.
Carl will be gone because he blows chunks, not because of his race.
JoeM, having an opinion but not willing to share it kind of defeats the purpose of commenting on it.
re, O’Flaherty, IIRC he was one of the pitchers Bavasi said that internally management were high on (like Lowe) for their “unflappability”
I saw the Post article this morning, too, and was baffled too as Reynolds is such a huge part of ESPN’s baseball world– doing the Little League, Minor League games as well as BBTN & the All Star fluff… The only thing I could think of was perhaps something they considered a conflict of interest surrounding his brother’s work, but that was a stretch…
Yeah, JoeM – we’re intrigues. You hardly need to be a cynic to want to dump Carl. There are women on the UW Softball ‘B’ team who could easily out-hit him right now.
I can think of cynical reasons for having him stay – but for axing him? I can’t even postulate.
A cynical view for why they’d axe him would be “they love him but they don’t want to pay him next year”.
re, O’Flaherty, IIRC he was one of the pitchers Bavasi said that internally management were high on (like Lowe) for their “unflappabilityâ€
Hm. Interesting.
Can’t say that I’d be against that; Gil Meche is a prime example of a million dollar arm and a ten-cent head. Might be more interesting, and more fruitful, if we had a few more hundred dollar arms with million dollar heads.
I would guess that Harold would have to take Red’s spot in the televison/radio rotation from a financial standpoint. The older I get the better I was that is Hendu probably isn’t making the kind of money that Harold is used to or deserves.
Considering many of the discretions that have hit ESPN, my best guess is that Harold was contacted by TBS or Fox to do analysis. ESPN would treat that like treason.
While BBTN will suffer, I will miss Harold on the Little League World Series. He presented a sane view for parents and kids.
I wonder what cynical reasons there were to fire Harold Reynolds? I think he’d be a great fit – even more charisma than Dave Valle, more insight than Dave Henderson, more wit than Ron Fairly. And he probably likes kids mroe than Rick Rizzs.
Crikey, the bar is set pretty low, when I think about it.
Could not agree more about Dellucci. He’s the perfect fit for this ballclub. Given Snelling’s recent struggles at the plate, it makes perfect sense to let him work in Tacoma.
What would the price be for Dellucci? I’d say nothing more than a Nageotte or Atchison-type player.
HR’s dismissal from ESPN and BBTN is troubling. Remember, Michael Irvin is still around, even after his recent brushes with the law. Thus, I wonder whether Harold did something bad enough to warrant immediate dismissal.
I’m sure his employment K isn’t an at-will agreement; he’d likely have to be fired “for cause”.
We’ll see. But I doubt he’ll come back here to team w/Neihaus.
It be interesting to see O’Flaherty up. We both graduated from Wa-Hi, class of 2003. Didn’t think he would make it so soon.
But the real test is this: does he bring more mindless, slobbering sentimentality than Rick Rizzs? If so, sign him up!
One of Harold’s pet theories is that you don’t want big, lumbering guys in the lineup, because they “clog up the base paths”. He used Frank Thomas as one example. He believes that you win with guys who are speedy and can score runs. Really.
If you want to hear from an “analyst” who think a career .678 OPS guy like Harold himself helps you win more than a .990 guy like Thomas, you’ll really enjoy him.
On Harold Reynolds, this has to be a contract / competition issue. Unless he’s been hiding a double life, he’s a God-fearing kind of guy who has never been associated with private life stuff that would cause a firing. He strongly promotes the faith-related stuff. Maybe he told them he’d found another gig but wanted to keep doing Baseball Tonight as part of the deal, and ESPN said no thanks,and by the way – see ya!? Maybe he called somebody out on something behind the scenes? I’d be interested in hearing the details on this one.
Is Dellucci the answer? I would hope for something more, but as one in a series of moves, I think it makes sense.
Might be more interesting, and more fruitful, if we had a few more hundred dollar arms with million dollar heads.
I would like to save our million dollar heads for the Front Office. There’s a greater need there…
28, are you advocating an O’Flaherty move to the Front Office? Hmm…could be interesting.
I don’t think the God-fearing folks act one whit more moral in their lives. I have no idea, of course, why Reynolds has been fired, but I don’t think his being a man of faith makes any private life possibility less likely than it is for anyone else.
good point, we all remember Eugene Robinson, “Christian Coalition Athlete of the Year”
After looking at that video of Beltre and Lopez, I really think they were just fooling around. After it was over, nobody paid any attention to either of them – if they were that close to fisticuffs like their actions suggest, somebody would have been between them for a few minutes, at least. IMHO.
For the record, I have absolutely no idea what happened with Reynolds and ESPN.
I can say for certain, however, that Harold Reynolds is legitimately one of the best people you’d ever hope to meet, a true stand up guy, and I’ve never heard anyone say a bad word about the man. He’s pretty much universally accepted within the game as the nicest man in the business.
And if we could stay away from the whole religous/race angles for the rest of this thread, that’d be great.
Melky for Meche!
“I don’t think the God-fearing folks act one whit more moral in their lives. I have no idea, of course, why Reynolds has been fired, but I don’t think his being a man of faith makes any private life possibility less likely than it is for anyone else.”
Do you really want to start this debate on a baseball blog, scraps? c’mon. I can’t disagree with you more, but we can take up this issue on a morals/religion blog or something. Plus, if you read the comment you just reproduced, the three things go hand-in-hand to make my point:
A. he’s a God-fearing kind of guy
B. who has never been associated with private life stuff that would cause a firing.
C. He strongly promotes the faith-related stuff.
If you’ve got an religion axe to grind, please spare the rest of us.
sorry Dave, was typing when you made your last comment.
And if we could stay away from the whole religous/race angles for the rest of this thread, that’d be great.
Yes, this kind of thing makes me wince. And how about going as far as to hold off on speculating on why he might have been fired until there’s more news that a NEW YORK POST blurb about it (not that I doubt the veracity of the story, there just aren’t many details yet.)
I just watched the video of Beltre & Lopez. It looks like much ado about nothing.
Yes, this is not the venue for religious disagreement. I’ll have plenty of time for that when I’m back in Northern Ireland next week.
Scraps is simply saying that point B is far more relevant than points A or C in this discussion.
I had no intention of starting a debate, just stating my opinion based on my observation of the world and its many god-fearing Bushes and Swaggarts, and my own weariness as a non-god-fearing person at the assumption that calling oneself moral makes one moral. I have no more religion axe to grind, Mr Mariner Fan in CO, than you appear to. To me, promoting the faith-related stuff is a negative, mnore likely to result in unnecessary division than anything else, but that’s just my opinion, based on my experience, as your opinion is no doubt based on yours.
I am certainly willing to accept Dave’s testimony to Reynolds’s actual character and behavior.
Thank you, Evan.
looking at the beltre/lopez clip, i think if there was genuine anger there felix would have realized this and made a better attempt to hold back lopez. but as far as i could tell, that would have to be the weakest attempt to hold someone back from going after someone else ever. that is unless felix, in mid hold, realized how absurd it would have been for lopez to go after beltre there like that, and figured lopez realized this too.
Am I the only one who sees Felix throw Lopez away from Beltre?
Honestly, I’m amazed that we can all watch the footage and come away with such wildly different perspectives.
Beltre sure doesn’t look like it was ajoke as he walks away.
Dave, in your original post you spelled recurrence wrong.
Dave, in your original post you spelled recurrence wrong.
As far as I can tell, this is the only time in this entire thread the word recurrence is used.
Though I will gladly admit that spelling is not my strong suit, and I’m fully aware of the fact that if I wasn’t an author here, Derek would be deleting a lot of my comments.
yeah, he throws him away, while he has a huge smile on his face (also what he’s doing when he’s holding him earlier and looking at beltre).
obviously if there’s not a legitimate beef, it’s a playfight.. and hence, playfighting like activities.
and as far as beltre’s ’scowl’, that’s what his face has looked like in every moment he’s ever had a mariner uniform on.
Dave Neihouse – Messing up calls, getting senile very quick
Rick Rizzs – Is like listening to a used car salesman sell a bad car
Dave Valle – Whatever
Dave Henderson – I LIKE Dave Handerson
I also like Harold Reynolds. Can’t we do something about the play by play guys. Like have two commentators?
Scraps – Let’s try to avoid getting either of us banned over this. And I am certainly not going to move this discussion into talking about President Bush, sheesh. By the way, I wasn’t the first to suggest the religion angle on this thread, you might want to skim above mine. But let’s call it quits and get on topic.
I saw Felix move Lopez physically. I think the shoulder from Beltre emphasizes the seriousness. I couldn’t tell if Felix was laughing or shouting at Beltre, though. Lopez said he hadn’t had much sleep after his trip, maybe that contributed?
Haven’t you guys ever “play-fought” with your buddies, teammates, co-workers etc.? If it was an actual confrontation, the rest of the bench wouldn’t just sate there like nothing happened. That, and the scuffle would have been deamed newsworthy by the Seattle media so we’d have heard interviews and questioning on it by now.
I’m pretty convinced they were messing around. Either way, I blame Carl Everett.
I’ll let it go this time
[ps why is Derek such a spelling Nazi? Is there some kind of traumatic incident in his past?] [PS I'm just tweaking here. I spelled Pineiro wrong once and got deleted. Never again!!]
Oh I definitely don’t think they were joking around in that video clip. But it also seemed like one of those stupid times where even best friends can get mad at each other for some little trivial thing. It’s always forgotten once everyone cools down.
Of course nobody really knows for sure!
Lopez put his chocolate in Beltre’s peanut butter.
I abbreviated Valle to Val and got a post deleated once.
“Lopez put his chocolate in Beltre’s peanut butter.”
And he didn’t like that? C’mon.
RE: 13, that’s my extremely cynical theory. I think it’s a stupid idea but there have actually been complaints from local civil rights groups that the M’s favor hispanics and whites over black players as they are one of the only teams to finish the year without one on the roster since trading away mike cameron and randy winn previously.
Nevermind that the numbers prove there are less black players around in general(which is unfortunate to bordering on a tragedy) or that the Mariners field one of the most international teams in the majors. The M’s ownership being the PR-centric group they are try to please everyone including the NAACP.
I seriously hope this is a wild conspiracy theory and that they have some other equally stupid reason for keeping Carl like ‘chemistry’. Hopefully Dave’s right and Carl’s ticket is about to be punched for the next train out of Safeco.
Mariner Fan in CO Exile, I never wanted to squabble either. Seriously. I think my post 30 is a pretty emotionless statement of opinion, not a grinding of an axe. I know you weren’t the first to bring it up — I probably wouldn’t have said anything if it had only come up once — you just said it in a neat nutshell for quoting and replying to. Nothing personal, then or now.
It’s inevitable, even when talking about baseball, that sometimes hugely differing views of viewing the world are going to color our analysis of events. So far as I’m concerned, we’ve stated our views, and we can agree to disagree.
For the life of me I can’t remember where I read this, but a while back I remember reading a blog post somewhere written by a guy who had sat next to Reynolds on a cross-country flight. After a while they got to talking and chatting and by the time they’d landed, they had swapped home phone numbers and Reynolds told him to call him and he’d hook him up with some tickets or an interview at ESPN or something. The writer went on to say how kind Reynolds had been on the flight, especially since he sat there for a while just amazed that he was sitting next to THE Harold Reynolds, but he never called him since he thought he was just being nice to give him his phone number in the first place.
Two weeks later the writer gets a phone call from none other than Reynolds himself wondering if something was wrong since he hadn’t called. The writer was shocked that Reynolds had gone out of his way to call him just so he could do a favor for him. It seems like there are tons of stories like this out there or Reynolds being an outstanding guy and honestly, he’s not a bad baseball commentator. I say the Mariners sign him if at all possible.
Don’t know if this has been discussed, but is Lowe a candidate to start this year? I’ve heard rumblings (was it in the paper? Probably). The guy has been incredible. Has he still got a perfect ERA? Where the heck did this guy come from? Did anyone know he had this kind of stuff? Or should we chalk it up to “There’s no book on him/beginner’s luck?”
Whatever it is, I’ll take it!! So… a future starter?
RE: The scuffle. Looks to me like Adrian is really upset and Lopez is too but can’t do much about it right then. Felix realizes they are making a bigger deal about it than necessary and he thinks it’s funny (which could give the viewer the sense that is funny). King F tosses Lopez aside but in such a way that it kind of cools things off.
Hargrove looks pissed, but being such a lily-livered old fart, does nothing but stare.
Looks like Jose was pitching Adrian some B.S. that offended him.
“Lopez put chocolate in Beltre’s peanut butter.”
Is that some kind of vulgar euphemism?
I think the rest of the bench would in fact just hope it would die down without too much intervention being necessary. If you don’t treat it like a big deal, maybe it won’t turn into one. As for the Seattle media, they are hardly a tough investigative bunch. If they thought it was visible to the fans, they might have to ask about it. Otherwise, the Seattle media never seem especially interested in controversy or rocking the boat.
If you want to see a team that totally disregards racial diversity, check out last year’s Astro team.
#37. (re: …hold off on speculating on why he might have been fired until there’s more news that a NEW YORK POST blurb about it…)
I honestly don’t think any of us will EVER see any blurb about HR’s firing. I imagine there’s some kind of gag order clause in his contract which is in effect even if he’s fired. And of course ESPN won’t say, ESPECIALLY if it’s something petty like the on-air disagreement with John Kruk (and Phillips, and Ravech).
If it’s not, if it’s something really major, I’d be even more shocked than I am right now at the firing.
Am I the only one who thinks that if there was a real fight in the dugout, those two would be the very last guys to throw down? Jose Lopez smiles roughly 96.4% of the time the camera is on him, with Beltre not far behind at 92.3%. It’s a new stat on BP, by the way. The Happy-Go-Lucky Index is what they call it. Anyways, for this to happen during when the team held a substantial lead in a game that was to be their third win in a row seems unlikely. It seems much more likely that the two were play fighting and the brief seconds of camera footage doesn’t give us nearly the context one would need to draw a real conclusion here. That nobody there besides a (possibly smiling?) Felix was there to break them makes it seem all the more likely they were fighting. And the shoulder Beltre gives doesn’t look too rough, to me.
Reynolds instead of Valle or Hendu? Yes, please.
Anyway, as for Everett, results like last night’s scare me, as I think part of the reason he’s hung around is his two walkoff HRs. The M’s are big on intangibles and are going to overvalue things like the occasional hits that win ballgames over the general record of craptasticness that Everett’s had so far.
With regards to the pennant race…I’m nervous because despite Joel somehow getting through 6 IP without getting pureéd, the rotation’s in pretty sad shape right now if Jamie is about to have a few weeks where he gets hammered (as he seems to be having more frequently in the twilight of his career). It’s hard for me to see us going on much of a run with a rotation where 3 of the 5 starters are junkballers who are getting creamed regularly. I wonder if being a buyer means we’re angling for a starting P. I see that as an alternative to Dellucci.
“Lopez put chocolate in Beltre’s peanut butter.â€
Is that some kind of vulgar euphemism?
Oh Colm, you were deprived of so much culture by not being raised in America.
It’s an old Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup commercial.
OTOH, speculation on other message boards is rampant, and there’s always the “insider scoop”:
[innuendo]Some poster over at BTF who works/used to work for ESPN said, “You would have fired him, too.”[/innuendo]
I read on ESPN Rumor Central that the Mariners were looking at Todd Walker for LH bat in the DH platoon. Has anybody heard anything more about this?
Beltre: So, how was your trip home?
Lopez:
Beltre: Hello?
Lopez:
Beltre: No reason to be smug, guy.
Lopez:
Beltre: You know, we ARE in the middle of a pennant race. Gonna stick around from now on or did you forget to turn off your iron?
Lopez:
Beltre: You son of a…
Silly me. Americans confuse me. Especially my own kids.
oooh, I know! Conflict of interest with the MLB/DHL Major League Baseball Hometown Heroes program!
Re: the video clip
I’ve watched that thing thirty times now, and I think I am convinced they were either joking or it was a really trivial moment that they didn’t really take seriously.
I mean, that’s my best guess, but I really have no idea.
This was what finally tipped the scales for me:
The most interesting thing for me was he Beltre/Pentland shoulder thing. And after watching it, I think it was just an accident. Beltre turning around and looking back to see what just happened was not the look of somebody who just intentionally rammmed someone. If anything, Pentland acted more like he knew he was walking into Beltre. Every part of the way Beltre acted looked like a a guy who registered late that he just had contact with someone and turned back to see what happened, totally neutral.
So I went back to the start to watch Pentland form the beginning, and this is what ultimately convinced me that, if it was a real spat, it was way, way less than a big deal…
Raul Ibanez, a guy I would expect to at least be interested in clubhouse fights, is standing a foot from the whole thing from the beginning and never even glances over. He sits there putting eyedrops in his eye while Lopez is lunging, never even flinches. He just continues his talk with Jeff.
Watching thier reactions is what makes me think it was either a joke, or a momentary spat so inconsequential that no one even took notice.
“Anyway, as for Everett, results like last night’s scare me, as I think part of the reason he’s hung around is his two walkoff HRs.”
I’ve had that exact same thought, EC. It’s why I was sick to my stomach last night, too. Maybe the two worst things to happen to the M’s this season were those two game winning HR’s. Irony is a bitch.
#33: he grew up in Corvallis….enough said….
It seems like so long ago when we didn’t have the internet for things like Zapruder film-like analysis of shoving matches between baseball players.
I’d like to second Tyler’s comment at 49. Rizzs, not Dave Hendu, is the guy who needs to be replaced, and Niehaus is way past his prime and needs to have his role reduced. If Harold Reynolds can help bring that about, I’m all in favor of it.
#21-
Maybe I’m the only one, but I doubt David Dellucci comes quite that cheap. The Phillies would rather deal Abreu or Burrell to clear up salary, and even if they’ve decided that Dellucci’s not a guy they count on down the line, he’ll have value to a lot of teams as a fourth outfielder/DH type.
“Dave Henderson – I LIKE Dave Handerson”
Wowza. I thought you were a myth. I didn’t really think you could exist, but there you are.
If Hendu went over to the White Sox, they’d have the worst announcing squad in the history of sports, I think.
And sometimes, just for a moment, I think I like Valle even less.
I would listen to Dave N. miscall a thousand fly balls before I wanted his role reduced in favor of any of the guys in our booth. A hundred thousand.
#76– born in Eugene & raised in Corvallis, best of both worlds as it were….
Count me in as huge Harold Reynolds fan.
I actually spent some substantive time with him during the 2001 Little League World Series, when I was covering the Bainbridge Island team for The Seattle Times and several other publications. Reynolds was leading the ESPN2 broadcast team for the tournament, and the day before the first games, he spent about two hours with the team, taking pictures, signing autographs, answering a zillion questions and telling cool, funny stories about his own Little League experiences as a kid in Oregon. He let me interview him for about 20-25 minutes later, and as jaded and cynical a reporter as I am, I was completely won over by him in the space of about 11 seconds.
But all that’s almost beside the point. He’s a nice guy … but he also knows baseball, is mildly sabe-friendly (he talked a lot about how he wished he could have bulked up his on-base and slugging percentages) and has a rare natural gift for articulating his thoughts without awkward pauses or stammering.
I ended that interviewing wishing someone would pay me $50,000 or so to be his best friend.
John in LA I agree with you. Niehaus is the best we have, and Valle is worse than Hendu. I was merely suggesting that Reynolds would be an upgrade over pretty much everybody…….
There is no way Jose Lopez does the little shoulder thing at the end if thats a real fight. That is absolutely the kind of move you do if you are just messing around with a friend.
According to the anonymous ESPN sources who’ve posted at the blog link below, it was a sexual harassment thing that led to HR’s firing. If true, he’ll get another job in baseball, but I doubt the M’s would be the ones to hire him so soon afterwards…
http://www.deadspin.com/sports/top/was-this-why-harold-got-the-axe-189733.php
Honestly, I’m amazed that we can all watch the footage and come away with such wildly different perspectives
It’s the nature of human perception to see the same thing and interpret it in wildly differing ways. There have been fascinating studies on the terrible unreliability of eye witness testimony yet in legal matters we cheerfully send people off to the gas chamber relying on such testimony — often where there isn’t even a videotape so the jury can see the ‘real facts’ for themselves and rewind in case of disagreement. Thank God it’s ‘only’ baseball, eh?
signed, crusty old trial lawyer
While we don’t know for sure why Reynolds was fired, Deadspin is perpetuating a sexual harrassment rumor, fueled by emails from inside the Bristol campus. I’d be shocked if it was anything else – regardless of Reynold’s public “good guy” image.
http://www.deadspin.com/sports/top/was-this-why-harold-got-the-axe-189733.php
13. I’m in Chesapeake, nice to know there is other Virgina M’s fans.
that sucks about HR..He is awesome.
funny.
There apparently was a lot of cutting up in the M’s dugout last night. After Pineiro made the catch of a popup on the mound, the FSN broadcast cut to the dugout to show Carl Everett “flapping his wings” to show Lopez and Felix how Pineiro was waving everyone off while making the catch. All 3 of them appeared to be laughing hysterically – good times.
The Phillies would rather deal Abreu or Burrell to clear up salary, and even if they’ve decided that Dellucci’s not a guy they count on down the line, he’ll have value to a lot of teams as a fourth outfielder/DH type.
Two words: Randy Winn.
I have a hard time buying that the market for 4th OFers is incredibly high.
Dellucci’s .325/.369/.608 this year is a pretty darned nice line for a 4th outfielder. Does he have butterfingers or run Raul routes?
I was just reading yesterday that Dellucci’s actually pretty unhappy to be a bench guy. (it’s the bottom of the page, not the Fasano-dumping top part of the page.) quoted:
this is for the benefit of Scraps and anyone itching for religious ruckus on a different forum:
http://www.thevacuum.org.uk/issues/issues0120/issue10/is10artmybeef.html
Remember when Odalis Perez was out of the M’s price range just a year and a half ago?
If the Beltre-Lopez thing were a serious disagreement, I don’t think that everyone around the event, save a laughing Felix, would have ignored what was going on.
I don’t think the Phils will price him as a fourth OF, though. He was a starter for much of the year last season for Texas, and they gave up Robinson Tejada and Jake Blalock to get him. (I don’t know where Tejada would have ranked on a prospect list or anything, but that’s the frame of reference). Because he did well last season as a regular, and because he’s so valuable off the bench as a reserve, the Phils will find a market if they decide to deal him. I don’t think it’ll take the crown jewel of the farm system, but I bet it takes more than a Nageotte-type player.
As I recall from his Baltimore days lo those many years ago, he’s not a bad defensive OF or anything.
I know I am in the minority, but I like Rizzs from time to time. It’s true, I get annoyed at his Willie-lather and some of the homerism, but when something big happens for the Mariners, he gets pretty excited and can make a good call.
While Fairly as the PBP guy is a vast improvement over his color work, if he were to call a walk-off Grand slam for Richie, I would have difficulty determining if he were the M’s or opposing team’s commentator.
I still think Calabro was a welcome vacation from the usual tandems.
97 – Gillick would of course value Dellucci as a starting OF, but he’s not going to get that back in return, because he’s probably the only GM in the game who sees Dellucci as more than what he is.
I’d give the Phils Nageotte for Dellucci, no questions asked.
Last night Ron Fairly said that Dinosaur Boy was having a “great season”….who has he been looking at all year? Release both Everett and Fairly, and get Harold to replace Fairly….those are two moves I could support.
#100– of course, Clint is still on the DL so really he couldn’t be traded, but….
As far as Beltre looking pissed, he always kind of looks that way. I mean, he looks like one of the rock-em-sock-em Robots most of the time I see him in the dugout, even after something you’d expect him to be happy about. If he really did get mad, I think his scowl would peel paint off the railing.
The deadspin articles are pretty accurate in representing the rumblings in the office. The scuttlebutt is that HR, while an immensely nice person, might be too nice to people of a certain gender.
jtopps–doesn’t it occasionally bother you that Rizzs knows virtually nothing about how the game is played and as a result ends up saying ridiculous/absurd things about whatever just happened?
#105– which is interesting, because you’d think someone who played even a minimal amount of college ball would know how the game was played…
Dellucci is strictly a platoon player — he cannot hit LHP at all. His 2006 numbers are a bit inflated due to (a) almost all of his ABs are against RHP, (b) his home ballpark, and (c) small sample size. His career line is 262/346/446 overall and 271/358/470 against RHP. As Dave mentioned up top, the M’s certainly could use that type of production. The problem is so could almost every other contender. Considering his modest salary and the fact that he will not cost a top prospect, most of them are interested in him, so the team that acquires him will probably need to overpay somewhat to get him. The price should fall somewhere north of Asdrubal Cabrera but south of Adam Jones.
As for Beltre-Lopez, if you look closely at the grainy footage, you can see that the instigator was Roger McDowell.
“Willie-lather” (#98)!
I hope that willie-lather doesn’t somehow explain Harold’s firing (if you know what I mean).
93 Deanna, Thanks for the link re: Dellucci’s unhappiness. It was also interesting to read of the Philly fans love for Sal Fasano to the extent that “a group of about 20 or so formed Sal’s Pals, and dressed up with fake mustaches and wigs.”
If they love scrubs so much in Philly, wouldn’t they just love Bloomquist? Even though he’s a local boy, he’s played here for 5 years and doesn’t have any sort of organized fanclub, like, say “Willie’s Wieners” or “Bloomie’s Buddies”…
Dellucci’s OPS #’s for the last 3 months:
May 1.308
June 1.047
July .931
88 – I’m from Chesapeake!
Go Wright, Cuddyer, Uptons, etc.
jtopps–doesn’t it occasionally bother you that Rizzs knows virtually nothing about how the game is played and as a result ends up saying ridiculous/absurd things about whatever just happened?
chico ruiz-
Well, it does bother me when he says ridiculous/absurd things about whatever just happened. I would disagree with you when you say he knows virtually nothing about baseball. I think that’s a pretty over the top assessment of him.
I certainly tire of him, and he’s not the greatest announcer or anything, but when you are listening to the game and the Mariners take the lead in the bottom of the eighth in a tight game, he adds a lot of enthusiasm. That’s a huge bonus for me, especially if I am listening on the radio, when I cannot be a part of the energy of Safeco.
In other news the Reds released Estaban Yan yesterday would you take him over Mateo Dave?
What I find most interesting about Shove-Gate is the recurrence of a strawman in these comments that thinks someone feels this is a serious problem. It is possible for it to be an actual disagreement but not a problem going forward.
My take is that one of them said something the other took the wrong way, so Felix made sure nothing came of it. Since one of them (as my theory goes) was taking the comment too seriously, no one else thought much of it, since Felix had things under control. I haven’t seen anyone suggest this will seriously be a problem going forward, and I also doubt this will be a problem going forward. But it is fun to analyze.
It would take a lot of shoving from either of those two to move Felix out of the way. Although Betre does look as if he he could bench press Cecil Fielder.
109 – I dunno. I think part of the Fasano Fad also had to do with him being a hard-nosed gritty Italian dude with a cool mustache playing in South Philadelphia, which is full of hard-nosed gritty Italian dudes with cool mustaches. I don’t really remember Phillies fans embracing very many scrappy white guys from Washington when I lived in Philly, unless you count shortstop Kevin Stocker (he went to UW, and was called up to the Phillies on the crazy 1993 team, and my friends and I really liked him. If we’d been more clever, we could have been “Stocker’s Stalkers” or something. But I’m not even sure I was aware that he was from Washington at the time).
Seems kinda funny that a 20 y/o kid would “take charge” of a budding quarrel. Seems more likely that the kid is just appreciating a little give-and-take between 2 other teammates (who may be speaking his language, which may be why Hargrove was not reacting), and joined in at the last.
Mind you, I haven’t seen the video (apparently don’t have the download to play a .mpg) and didn’t see it on TV, I’m just speculating…
I think shove-gate warrants an official USSM poll question, so we can settle this matter.
jtopps–I’ll grant you that if Rizzs is anything, he’s enthusiastic about the Mariners. I guess I just think it’s more important that an announcer accurately report what’s happening in the game and with the team. The good ones do even more than that by revealing a layer of understanding that goes beyond what a casual fan sees. Rizzs fails on those counts, to the point that I find his enthusiasm more annoying than helpful–particularly if it’s misplaced to cover up Mariner weaknesses. For instance, wouldn’t it be nice if someone in the booth would occasionally wonder about whether the M’s really benefit from starting Bloomquist when he’s so much more useful off the bench?
Cool moustache. I’m trying to picture that. Nope, it’s not coming to mind.
If there is much of anything to that incident, then it really doesn’t take much to hold Jose Lopez back! If you look at it, Felix barely has ahold of him, and Lopez barely makes any progress.
But it could have been joking on one side, and maybe the other party didn’t find it to be funny. Although judging from the lack of reaction from everyone else in the dugout, I doubt it was much of anything.
You can clearly see from the footage that Lopez’s head move back and to the left, back and to the left, back and to the left…for all you conspiracy lovers out there.
I’m sure Rizzs would be happy that his affectation of enthusiasm has convinced some portion of fandom that he is actually enthusiastic.
He’s not. He’s the least sincere broadcaster I’ve ever been exposed to for any length of time.
If that floats your boat, though, wheee!
#119– well, cool if you are living in the 70s
Lopez simply noticed Rizz on the grassy noll.
gosh, my favorite enthusiatic Rizzs moments are those when they come back late from a break, and he doesn’t want us to feel we’ve missed out on anything, so he pretends the at-bat is happening just as we come back on-air. Even though you can hear the crowd reacting to the play before he begins to anounce the ‘play in progress’, he happily & loudly gives us the play-by-play.
He’s not. He’s the least sincere broadcaster I’ve ever been exposed to for any length of time.
Earlier in the year, when MLB.tv was forgetting to shut off between innings and we were treated to live microphones when the announcers weren’t “on-air”, you’d actually hear Rissz practicing his shtick. It was sad and hilarious at the same time. He’d go through five or six different readings of lame comments, trying to find the best way to say “Joel Pineiro is pitching well tonight.” We’d hear the following for 30-40 seconds:
“Man, that Joel Pineiro really has his stuff tonight – how exciting!”
“Joel Pineiro is bringing it tonight, folks. Hold onto your hats!”
“We’ve got a doozy tonight, boys and girls – Joel Pineiro brought his game!”
It was unintentional comedy at its best.
119/123 — way back before the season started, a bunch of us in the Phlogosphere decided that Fasano resembled Lawrence from Office Space.
I know I am in the minority, but I like Rizzs from time to time. It’s true, I get annoyed at his Willie-lather and some of the homerism, but when something big happens for the Mariners, he gets pretty excited and can make a good call.
i agree. i like rizzs, too. not a whole hell of a lot, but more than most people appear to.
mainly because i think he just really enjoys the game of baseball as a whole, and that comes through in how he broadcasts the game. yes, it definitely borders on cheesy occasionally, but i think for the most part he calls a good game.
the homerism thing is less easy to swallow, whoever it comes from. mainly because it just leads you to think this person isn’t gonna be capable or interested in presenting an unbiased eye towards what’s happening on the field.
at least our broadcast team isn’t in the east coast football tv/radio broadcast neighborhood, where commentators tend to just scream bloody murder at the top of their lungs the entire game.
#125– I always shake my head at those time-delay calls as well.
Chico- I would say that, generally speaking, we are in agreement. I appreciate the enthusiasm when it is warranted by the game, and our differences may be that I just shrug it off when he’s being insincere.
I hope Jeff runs into a certain play-by-play friend in the near future. We would all love to hear Evil Rick Rizzs’ take on Everett’s struggles, Hargrove’s managing, and especially Lopez-Beltre I.
There’s a difference between being an insincere jerk and being an insincere guy who feels like he’s got to rehearse everything to do what he does. Neither is a particularly good recipe for an announcer, but Rizzs isn’t an on-air a-hole or anything. He’s more like Plastic Man. He’s like the little brother that comes along with Dave N. to play kickball with the rest of us. We tolerate him, and even let him in the game because Dave’s ability far outshines his, but if we had the choice we’d rather Dave showed up alone.
Maybe Keith Hernandez fooled HR into thinking he could excuse anything with, “I’m Harold Reynolds”
Anyone else recently having trouble getting ESPN.com/MLB to just LOAD quickly, completely? Their servers must be overloaded from all the e-mail, message board speculating, etc. about HR…
maybe we should stop speculating over whether HR was fired for sexual harassment.
on it’s face, it’s seems a little inconceivable that he would just be let go like that so quickly, without even the initiation of any sort of court proceedings. it just seems to me like, running a company, you’d expect that there would at least be the chance that a sexual harassment complaint (against a celebrity) might be false.
that is, unless the good guy harold reynolds just couldn’t deny it when confronted, and just had to get it off his chest.
but if places are just firing people because of an initial harassment complaint, that doesn’t do anybody any favors.
my bet is on him going behind backs to explore his options with other networks, and having someone drop a dime on him
He’s not. He’s the least sincere broadcaster I’ve ever been exposed to for any length of time.
As I’ve heard it, he’s also a bit of a ladies man. Not quite at the “You’re with me, leather” level, though.
Even thinking of Rizzs saying “You’re with me, leather” is cringe-inducing for me.
Some wit over at Sportsjournalists.com suggested that ESPN fired Harold by mistake…they meant to can Joe Morgan…
#135– hey, he’s single (unlike a certain alleged leather-fan was at the time)
Derek, in the name of decency, please!!!
Rizzs + “You’re with me, leather” = 1,000,000 misused punctuation marks.
Think I need therapy. Was wishing for Everett to hit into double plays, and was upset when he actually got hits.
…you’d actually hear Rissz practicing his shtick.
This lends credence to my theory that years ago Rizzs was replaced by the RizzsBot3000, a play-by-play robot. “He” even talks about the local Italian restaurants in every city to make “him” sound human.
If — if — it was sexual harrassment that got Reynolds fired, I hope I will be forgiven for noting that I was not out of line in thinking that a faith-professing person is as capable of something like that as a non-faith-professing person.
And I sincerely hope that this will not be taken as any kind of anti-religion post. If I have to spell it out, I come from a devout background, my sister is a wonderful Christian teacher of the best sort, and on my own blog I get testy with anti-religious folks who think they are superior.
I’d love to hear Harold calling Mariners games. I listened to him a fair amount the last two years during the College World Series and found him to be extremely pleasant, fair and (most importantly) useful in his comments.
Plus, he’s from Oregon, so he’s obviously smarter than most.
I would dearly love to have HR broadcasting M’s games. Can’t imagine he’s anywhere near our price range, though.
Does HR live in this area? Maybe he’d give us a hometown discount..
Here’s an update on Reynolds from Deadspin:
(UPDATE: Another reader, with “contacts on the inside,” refutes the sexual harassment whispers: “Anyone who is saying sexual harassment either has been given bad third-hand info or is lying. Harold has had a couple of rather heated arguments with the producers at “Baseball Tonight,” and some of the suits at ESPN over the program’s coverage of Alex Rodriguez. At the last production meeting, when it was made clear they were going to really play up the A-Rod angle during coverage of the Yankees-Texas series, Harold had a colossal meltdown, which led to his dismissal. The sexual harassment allegations are even more laughable when you consider that he is being replaced by Steve Phillips — a man who has never met a skirt he wouldn’t chase and who was caught in one of the more embarrassing front office sexual harassment scandals in MLB history.”
True? Not true? This, like the rest of it, just reinforces our point: We don’t know. And the longer ESPN pretends like nothing happened, like they’re a corner shop with three employees, believing this stuff can possibly remain private, the more talk there will be. Still, this is the lone “it’s not sexual harassment email” we’ve received.)
145: Wow. If he’s defending A-Rod from the media feeding frenzy, I like him even more.
“Play fighting” what are they, 8 year olds?
If he’s defending A-Rod, then he won’t be happy here
I think people here only really criticise A-Rod for the way he left town, though.
There’s something about the pile-on on A-Rod here in New York that’s sickening. The more blood there is in the water, the more people join the fray. I honestly can’t remember anything quite like it, with such a large percentage of a fan base and media so eager to destroy a great player once it’s clear he’s vulnerable.
I guess using “here” to describe both Seattle and New York shows how conflicted I am about where I choose to live.
#147- Sure, wealthy 8 year olds.
it’s the whole Steve Phillips crusade that is so distasteful, acting as though he is speaking from a disinterested point of view (hello? Steve? “The Mets are not 24+1″ ring a bell?) and the way it has been run into the ground, night after night.
I’ve long thought that Alex Rodriguez was too “slick” for his own good and rather insincere, but even when I was most disgusted with him over the Texas signing, I never doubted that Alex Rodriguez is one of the three best players of his generation. It is rather sick how he has been treated since going to NY.
As far as HR’s firing, the reference to Steve Phillips makes a good point. To fire Harold for sexual harassment and replace him with Phillips would be beyond laughable. Which goes to suggest, I think, that folks shouldn’t be so quick to assume the worst (much less to spread it around as gossip, which tends to take on a life of its own).
“Sexual harassment” suggests repeated misconduct of a sexual nature. If HR was truly fired due to sexual harassment, I wonder how much ESPN tolerated before they let him go?
I watched part of one of the Yankee/Ranger games and, yes, they spent an incredible amount of time “analyzing” A-Rod. Funny, 153, but one of the comments was that he was “too slick.”
Oh, and they concluded that he would be so much happier now if he’d followed Cal Ripken’s example and had stuck with one team throughout his career. Soooo much happier if he was still a Mariner.
Be nice if they could stick to just covering the baseball game being played, but that’s never going to happen.
As much as I can’t personally stand the way A-Rod conducts himself on a day-to-day basis, if the coverage of him right now is the issue, HR should get a lot of respect for that. A former player being disgusted enough by it all to stake his job on that is really impressive to me.
I live in NY too, though I’ve been out of the country all summer (thus missing the worst of this frenzy), but if there’s anything more obnoxious than A-Rod it’s ridiculous pronoucments that he’s not a real Yankee or whatever. I’m torn in the “choker” debates because I do think he’s a little mentally fragile, but clearly the criticism he gets in that regard is so overblown that I understand why people flip out on the subject denying the possibility. I wouldn’t want him at bat with a playoff game on the line, though.
On the other hand, I hope Yankee fans do manage to chase him out of town, because I think it would be a total disaster for them, though they might be able to get a pretty amazing package. It would be pretty funny if he was pushed out of town and got back to the World Series before the Yankees (as long as it’s with an NL team, because I don’t want him back here). Anyway, I’m choosing to believe with no evidence that this is why HR has been fired, and I think it’s great.
#153: Sick? Nah. He isn’t performing and it was HIS choice to sign that outrageous contract. I don’t hate him for signing that contract…I do dislike the disingenuousness of the man. The guy is the ultimate teflon man.
So basically, he wants to be paid like the best player in baseball? He should deal with the catcalls and frustrations of Yankee fans who expect him to be one of, if not THE BEST player on his team.
Shed no tears for A-Rod as he brought all this on himself. He knew the Rangers would be financially limited in signing more impact players should the team underperform.
I just don’t feel sorry for him. I can’t. Just like with our beloved Mariners, if we sign a guy eating salary and he doesn’t perform, we tend to not be happy with that person (ahem – Adrian, Jerrod) as it’s hard to justify the money with the performance.
As much as I dislike Arod, there is NO evidence that he is not “clutch.” Anyone with 5 minutes and an internet connection can check his situational stats on espn.com, and yet the guys that get paid to talk about that stuff constantly ignore it.
Hi!
A-Rod will get his own post at some point.
Until then, A-Rod comments are off-topic, and I’m going to start banning people in… oh, three minutes.
tick tick tick
Wouldn’t the M’s trading for Delucci be discouraging to Snelling? Or is he so far off the top of his game that he wouldn’t be discouraged by a trade for a player to fill a spot that looks ideal for him? Just asking.
A racial angle to Everett’s continued presence sounds as good as any theory right now.
As for the tussle, consider this factor: The team just won two straight from one of the best teams in baseball, and they had just scored again, and have a 4-run lead in the sixth. Does this sound like fuel for a fight?
You know what I love about this site? I missed the game last night, haven’t seen the video of “the fight,” and yet I feel like I know about it intimately. Aren’t blogs great?
Also, RE: Rizzs. Let’s admit it, the man’s kind of a clown and I dislike his “slickness.” But two things in his favor: He knows his baseball history like nobody’s business. I like that, because it shows he was just like a lot of us as a kid, soaking up the backs of baseball cards and all the baseball books he could find. And two, he always tells you the score and the inning on the radio, something Niehaus is TERRIBLE at.
But Niehaus is the greatest, and anybody that gets on him for a few badly judged flyballs would probably kick a puppy while no one was looking. I hope he dies behind the mike, calling a “GRAND SALAMI”! He IS Mariners baseball to those of us who have been following the club since the beginning. Of course, he’s also the last one around from those halcyon days of the late ’70s.
“I hope he dies” is an interesting way to begin a friendly sentence.
I don’t know anything about Harold Reynalds, or the situation. But I wouldn’t put a lot of stock in rumors until something gets confirmed. It wouldn’t be the first time that somebody did something (like, say, exploratory talks about going to work with a competitor) that
not only got them fired but so pissed off someone in the hierarchy that they went around dropping sotto voce “leaks” about unsavory activities for no reason other than petty vindictiveness. It’s dangerous, of course, because if the leaks can be traced then you’re open to a lawsuit, but ESPN has always struck me as the kind of frathouse jock-wannabe kind of place where that kind of thing could happen.
With respect to the “fight” — who’s to say this kind of thing doesn’t happen between those two a couple of times a week? Lopez could be one of those guys who gets seriously angry about some little thing for all of 30 seconds and then is back to laughing with his buddies a minute later; although Beltre seems to be more of the brooding type he might be much the same. I agree no one else seems to be taking it very seriously, including Felix who has Lopez tucked under his arm in a way that wouldn’t stop Jose from slipping free if he really wanted to go (the ease with which Felix tosses him back is pretty funny, though). Personally, I blame it on Bloomquist:
Beltre: You know a whole weekend of this was bad enough, but now our All-Star is back and I’m still batting with Mr PanDeBlanco making an easy out right in front of me.
Lopez: Hey man, I’m tired. It was a long flight, and I didn’t get any sleep before that with the kid crying and all. You know what that’s like…
Beltre: No, I married my kid’s mamma so I could have the baby in the offseason–
Lopez: What’re you saying, man?! You calling my kid…?
Beltre: I’m saying you should have at least worn a damn–
Felix: OK, alright, nobody is calling anybody’s kid anything, alright? We all get cigars just the same. Now let’s just watch the damn game!
My interpretation of Shove Gate was that if (a) it was perceived to be serious by anyone in the dugout and (b) Felix was in the middle of it, both Beltre and Lopez would have been grabbed and told that if they had to fight they should do so around Willie (or around practically anyone but Felix.)
Baseball fights are usually stupid and quickly forgotten, but they occasionally lead to equally stupid injuries.
I have a friend that went to the same high school that Harold went to. We both played baseball against each other (I lived in Albany which is next to Corvallis).
Harold went back to the high school to accept an honor (They named the dugout after him or something), and my friend approached Harold to tell him how much of a fan he was and how he was proud to wear Harold’s number. Harold was pissy and said his number should be retired and walked away.
I don’t think much of him, or his great guy act. I’m not buying it.
I was at the game. I THINK I saw the parts that came after the video ended. … Lopez and Felix where screwing around with each other and my mother was reminded of how my siblings and I would fight. We thought it meant they were comfortable with each other. I mean we are talking about a couple of 20-something dudes in a very dude enviroment.
ON THE VIDEO
Look at the reactions of the other players. Lopez and AB either go at each other quite a bit or they were play fighting. The only person who was looking at them was Felix really. Raul was drinking water or cleaning out his eyes not a foot away and couldn’t seem to care less.
I think the team is either use to the two play fighting or fighting-fighting. Either way almost no one else in the dugout seemed to give it a look.
The Seattle Times is reporting on its web site that it was sexual harassment that caused Harold Reynolds’ firing from ESPN.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/mariners/2003152044_reynolds26.html
“Harold Reynolds, one of ESPN’s most visible analysts and a long-time panelist on “Baseball Tonight,” has left the network in the wake of one or more incidents of sexual harassment.”
“Three people who work at ESPN and were familiar with the case said the cause was a pattern of sexual harassment, apparently culminating in a recent incident involving one of the network’s young production assistants.”
USA Today has an interview with Reynolds.
I actually work at ESPN and confirm that the rumor is sexual harassment. Sucks, I just met the guy for the first time the other day.
That’s not saying much: “…confirm that the rumor is sexual harassment…”
Sure enough, I too can confirm that it’s a rumor. So can DMZ. So can Dave. So can Corco. And so on, and so on…
Also, it seems like there are several separate issues and stories in that USA Today interview.
1) he mentions giving a woman fellow ESPN employee a hug as the “misunderstood” reason for his dismissal.
2) he mentions his contract was up 6 months ago, and he “had opportunities to pursue”. (was that when he fished outside the ESPN waters?) and that he was in the first year of a new contract (evidently ESPN made it worth his while to stay with ESPN).
3) he wants his ESPN job back, despite ESPN deciding to “go in a different direction (John Kruk
) which he doesn’t agree with, however…
4) he’ll pursue “other avenues that are there”, avenues that ESPN created (but as he says “in a strange way”). (???)
As they say, stay tuned. This story could entertain (or disgust) us for months.
I had to say it like that because i’d prefer not to get fired.