MLB suspends Winters

[mattmets]

Don't know if anyone caught this, but a quote from the dirtbag 1BC....

Padres first-base coach Bobby Meacham, who overheard the argument between Winters and Bradley, said he wasn't particularly glad about the suspension: "Just or unjust, it's irrelevant in my mind. He made a mistake. Should he pay forever for it? No.

"I just think the truth should come out, and everybody should learn from this. It was not baiting. Those were just the easiest words to select. You're in the heat of the battle, all of a sudden you'll say things you wish you could take back. Everybody should learn from this. If we don't, shame on us."

[LomUmp]

Originally Posted by mattmets

Don't know if anyone caught this, but a quote from the dirtbag 1BC....

Hey all,

Where did this report come from? Is this the only thing this RAT had to say? I'm sorry, he not a rat, he's a LYING RAT!!!

LomUmp

[SanDiegoSteve]

Y'all are starting to sound like a bunch of Padre haters. Don't hate the player baby, hate the game.

[SanDiegoSteve]

Originally Posted by mattmets

Don't know if anyone caught this, but a quote from the dirtbag 1BC....

Don't know if you caught this from the New York Post:

PAGING DR. HEIMLICH

[GarthB]

Originally Posted by SanDiegoSteve

Y'all are starting to sound like a bunch of Padre haters. Don't hate the player baby, hate the game.

I see nothing wrong with hating the lying POS rat first base coach.

[t-rex]

That is an interesting quote from Meacham, because it appears to corroborate the author's source in this article:

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/blog/mlb...?urn=mlb,46959

Meacham states that, "It was not baiting. Those were just the easiest words to select." Passan states in his article that his source told him that Bradley told Winters not to treat him like a POS, and leaves it to us to guess the rest.

Very interesting. I'm wondering who baited whom.

[spokanelurker]

"I see nothing wrong with hating the lying POS rat first base coach."

Garth, you're an educated, articulate man, and yet you write stuff like this? Shame on you!

[GarthB]

Originally Posted by spokanelurker

"I see nothing wrong with hating the lying POS rat first base coach."

Garth, you're an educated, articulate man, and yet you write stuff like this? Shame on you!

Yep. Shame on me for condemning the coach who told the media that Winters made a racial slur, then changed his story to Winters made a comment that could be taken racially, then changed his story to one in which no racial accusation was made.

Shame on me for condeming the coach who threw Winters under the bus with his lies.

Shame on me for condemning the coach who never retracted his original statement and let Winters twist in the wind for two days hung by the racial accusation.

Yep. Shame on me for referring to him as a lying POS rat coach, and of all places, on an umpire forum.

And good for you, coach, for standing up for him.

[mattmets]

Originally Posted by SanDiegoSteve

Don't know if you caught this from the New York Post:

PAGING DR. HEIMLICH

Enjoy another first round sweep from your loser team.

[mbyron]

Originally Posted by t-rex

Very interesting. I'm wondering who baited whom.

The issue of "baiting" strikes me as a red herring. It seems to assume that the baitee is not in control of himself, and (mis)places the responsibility for such lack of control on others who might "say the wrong thing," on purpose or by accident.

[SanDiegoSteve]

Originally Posted by mattmets

Enjoy another first round sweep from your loser team.

Yeah, our loser team with the best pitching staff in the NL. The loser team with the 2007 NL Cy Young Award winner. Our loser team with the most acrobatic shortstop in the NL. Our loser team is highly entertaining to watch, and has provided many thrills for our city over the years, and we love them no matter whether we get bounced in the first round or not. Our loser team would love to go to the Series again, but we won't slit our wrists if we don't.

The Mets are reminding people of the '64 Phillies with their meltdown.

[Steven Tyler]

Originally Posted by SanDiegoSteve

Our loser team with the most acrobatic shortstop in the NL.

I didn't know you were a Giant fan. I guess you are SanFranciscoSteve, since they are the loser team with the most acrobatic shortstop in the NL.

I wonder if MLB placed a gag order on Mike Winters to avoid controversy. I'm sure they spoke to him about his comments, regardless or his suspension. No mention of a grievance being filed in his behalf. So far, all I've read are posters slamming the people that have spoken out on the incident that took place. I would be very interested to hear Winters' version.

[bobbybanaduck]

dropped out of 1st place for first time since mid may and are 2 games out of wild card with 2 to play. better to be swept out of first round that not even make the playoffs, i'd say.

[bobbybanaduck]

i haven't read through this whole thread and don't really have the energy to, so i apologize if this is has come up already. baiting players is not terribly uncommon. i wasn't there, and obviously can't speak for winters. however, i can take a stab at what went on. winters saw bradley throw the bat, and went and talked to the crew about it. they probably were pissed at themselves for not dumping him then, and winters then baited bradley to get him to dump himself after he should have been dumped already. no big deal, same result as what should have taken place already. bradley turned it into a big deal with his circus act and i find it very amusing that he ended up with a busted up knee for acting a fool.

[jimpiano]

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.