But why would you want to say it back? You are in charge and do not have to tolerate that. Throw him out; let him rant. When he leaves resume play. Just because you CAN do something does not mean you should.

From Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country

So you are suggesting ejections for use of profanity in professional baseball?

Winter's actions demean all of us umpires.

Using his power to bait a player, even a bad actor like Milton Bradley, is despicable. Ejections should be penalties for bad behavior, not for responding to insults.

Winters should be fired.

You don't shoot a pedigreed bull just because it sh!ts in the front yard.

Wow. You feel personally demeaned by this?

Good Lord, good thing you weren't around in the 70's.

Winters has been punished for his role in this. And his punishment may very well be long lasting. He was being, according to some, groomed to be a crew chief in the future. Most likely, that's gone.

You do if you have a herd of bulls waiting the wings to take his place. Anyone else smell the BBQ?

The MLB is in the entertainment business, and no one, aside from a few groupies here, pays money to see the umpires. Get out of line, and nobody will remember your name, the number you wore or when you went of vacation.

Also, why hasn't anyone brought up the fact that Runge threw Winters under the trolley by ratting him out? Junior and Milton had a larf about it, but Bradley singled, and then the fun began.

Everyone write it down. I agree with Tyler.:)

I like Mike Winters. I've always found him to be a real stand-up guy. I enjoyed auditing his officiating classes. I've known him for years. But in this case he was wrong.

The reason players only get ejected for calling an umpire a f****** piece of s*** is because they are not held to the same standards. The umpire is expected by the nature of his job to be above that sort of pedantic name calling. Winters could have just as easily just told Bradley to shut the f*** up, and Bradley probably would have said either, "Okay boss" or had a meltdown as he is known for. Either way, Winters would not be suspended right now.

I was suspended for the remainder of the season back in 1991 for an incident involving a rude fan and a certain crotch grab and hand gesture I made after the guy rode me throughout both ends of a double header in a tournament. Hey, I had to go before the board and the vote went 6 to 5 against me, with the president casting the tie-breaking vote. I lost a month's worth off HS ball because of my stupidity.

Don't do the crime if you can't do the time.

Absolutely.

Milton Bradley is a tool. That being said Winters should be fired. If you were working in corporate America and your mistake cost your company a big sum of money you would be fired.

Winters had no business talking to Bradley. As a result of this Bradley's career and livlihood is in jeopardy (yes he's a nitwit) and the Padres post season chances have been hurt posswibly costing them a huge sum of money. It's obvious Winters had no business talking to him judging by MLB's action. Just my opinion.

Winters had every right to talk to Bradley, just not using the language he did. Winters has his partners back and informed him of Bradley's antics with the bat.

Remember, Bradley brought it up initially when he got to first, so he had been stewing on it for a while. If Winters had just not called him a FPOS, Bradley would have been serving his suspension during rehab.

Winters was wrong for the language he used. He has been punished appropriately. To say that he should be fired is a gross overreaction to the situation.

The biggest farce here is this quote from Bradley "It's terrible. And now, because of him, my knee's hurt," he said after the game. "If this costs me my season because of that, he needs to be reprimanded. I'm taking some action. I'm not going to stand pat and accept this because I DIDN'T DO NOTHING WRONG." (emphasis added)

Yeah Milton, you did nothing wrong. Keep believing that!

Idiot...

I agree. I think he also won't work the playoffs this year, although we'll neve know whether that's punishment or he wasn't scheduled to work anyway.

My guess is that Bradley won't have any additional suspension -- the time he's out because of the injury is penalty enough, although he'll likley be fined. (And again, we likley won't know all the details here).

Bob, from what I've been told, Mr. Winters was scheduled to work post-season. Whether he remains on the schedule is unknown.

I Just Wonder....
 

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.

Last year's WS doesn't preclude him from working post-season this year. Mike is a damn good umpire and should be working play-off games, if not for this suspension.