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Old Sat Sep 29, 2007, 04:56pm
jimpiano jimpiano is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jkumpire
1. If Bradley does not hurt his knee, is this a big deal for more than 24 hours?

2. If Winters is being grooved for a crew chief job, why would this take him out of it?

3. If the Pads were not in the playoff hunt, would this matter at all?

You see my point? This situation, and his suspension, has been moved only because the 1B coached accused an umpire of racism, which always gets some media people fired up. It's also big because the Pads are in the playoff hunt.

Since MLB is very inconsistent in how it judges rule violations, and even missed calls by umpires (i.e. the Cleveland/Baltimore protest earlier in the year), this is all a political response to media and ESPN publicity, IMO.

Was Winter's wrong? We really don't know, unless you assume the MLB thinks he cussed or baited Bradley, and that crossed a line. But since we have no record of what happened we can access, we really don't know what happened. Look men, Bradley didn't go off any worse than George Brett did at the Pine Tar game, and only slightly less than Rose did at Dave Pallone, except he had nobody to hold him back at the time.

We also know that the 1B coach of the Pads did change his story after the fact, quite frankly IMO because the media is always a useful tool to beat opponents over the head with in sports, and other places in our life too. To use an overused phrase, he threw Winters "under the bus" to protect his player.

It also seems to me that Winter's is doing what everyone is supposed to do in this "team" oriented umpiring rubric these days, stick your nose into your partner's business. In the past, if HP missed the bat toss, U1 wouldn't say anything, until the after the game, when the HP guy could find then know he had business to take care of later.

I feel really sorry for Bradley, his temper has ruined his career, from his first days in Cleveland until now. And maybe the worst thing about the situation is that he has someone other than himself to blame for being so hot-tempered and selfish that he did real damage to his team and teammates. So he looks at his knee and blames Mike Winters, not the face in the mirror.

If Winters is going to be crew chief, he still should be in the mix. He more or less kept his cool (though you might see that as beauty in the eyes of the beholder) in a bad situation. He was also straight with his crew chief, according to his crew chief, so to me he has shown the necessary judgment and self-control needed to be a crew chief. One small time incident like this shouldn't leave him out in the cold, unless the Emperor in NYC really has no clothes on.
Your post is not consistent with the facts.

There is a record of what happened...from the interviews MLB did with Winters, Bradley, the coach and the first basemen. There is absolutely no doubt that Winters baited Bradley or Winters would not have been suspended.

It makes absolutely no difference to the penalty what the status of the pennant race is or, for that matter, that Bradley was hurt.

There is no excuse for any umpire, let alone a professional one, to bait a player into an ejection.

Winters was not accused of racism, he was found guilty of being profane and abusive.
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