Having lived in MO for a number of years I’m not understanding why he’d chose to say KC has a large homosexual population.
For sure it’s a unacceptable slur and he should be unemployed. But it’s not even a sensible slur, to the degree any slur is sensible.
It’s unsure of what city he was referring to - he was having a conversation with someone in his ear, and all we hear is “one of the f** capitals of the world”. They could have been talking about anything.
Wrigley Field, for example, is located adjacent to Boystown. The Cubs never have a game on the day of the Pride Parade in Chicago. Lots of straight people end up in Boystown if they’re trying to find parking or a bar that’s not as crazy and crowded as Clark Street.
The Reds have suspended him, and I suspect he will not be back.
I’ve seen some moaning in the baseball groups I’m in about cancel culture but this is a no brainer. The guy is a paid announcer and surely knows every mic is hot. That’s his job. And this wasn’t something happening 3 hours before first pitch either. The Reds and Fox Sports Ohio will need to work something out, but I’ve got a better chance of broadcasting Reds games than Brennaman does now.
Heck, now that one doesn’t have to move to Cincinnati to do the job, I bet they’ll get lots more applicants.
I’m in. Maybe we all should apply. 
Right? It’s not like it’s Des Moines (let’s see who get’s the reference)
The Phillies scored 7 runs today in the top of the first against Toronto. The Blue Jays came back to win 9-8 thanks to a 7-run sixth inning (and since it was only a seven-inning game, that’s equivalent to the eighth inning.)
But Fernando Tatis Jr. was unsportsmanlike for hitting a grand slam when his team was ahead six in the eighth inning?
I too am no fan of the “unwritten rules of genteel sportsmanlike conduct”. Write them down in the rule-book (thereby subjecting them to public debate / ridicule) or jettison them.
But …
In a 60-game season the relative importance of winning any given game looms extra large. Said another way, violating the social contract once is a bigger violation in a 60-game season than it would be in a 162-game season.
So that may explain the vehemence of the reaction to Tatis’ hit. IMO it doesn’t justify the reaction, but that’s a separate issue.
Overall baseball still pretends a bit to be a sport of genteel amateurs; why do they have “clubhouses” and are often still called “baseball clubs”? The reality is that each team is a 10 figure business and many players are individually 8 figure businesses. With that much money involved, business is all business.
Each player is legitimately building his own place in the record books (read as free agent salary pecking order) while also being concerned for helping his employer du jour win this game.
The idea that somebody could deliberately whiff a hanging breaking ball to give the final out to a no-hitting pitcher makes a certain sense in the “I scratch your back; you scratch mine.” Over a career, one less single (or even solo HR) won’t matter, but one more no-hitter will. It’s capital U unionism.
But that stuff needs to be kept small or it takes over. Particularly in the modern era with massive dollars being legally gambled both directly on games and indirectly via fantasy leagues, any time a player seems to pull up a smidgen will (and should) result in loud cries of “Fix!!”
IOW, these “unwritten rules of genteel sportsmanlike conduct” can be turned into cover for rampant game-fixing. In our modern greedy, heedless, and increasingly lawless society this becomes not a question of if, but of when.
But if this is true, then the debate over unwritten rules cuts both ways, and Tatis’ home run becomes even more understandable. If you lose a 7-run lead and lose the game in a 162-game season, then it’s only 1 game out of 162. But if it happens in a 60-game season, then it’s 1 game out of 60. So Tatis absolutely did the right thing.
Yeah, if anything, the “unwritten rules” should be thrown out for a short season. Most of the rules are basically “any one game doesn’t make a huge difference, so lets just play nice.”
I don’t care that Tatis swung on 3-0 and hit a grand slam in a game that was basically already in hand. I have no problem with that. But if he deliberately went against the take sign, that’s slightly more concerning just from a coaching perspective. “But he shouldn’t have been given the take sign!” Yes, I agree. But he was, and he should have followed it.
Agreed.
From Tatis’s POV in a short season it makes extra sense to swing for the seats. From the opponents’ perspective in a short season it makes extra sense for them to be butt-hurt over it.
It was the extra butt-hurtness I was speaking to.
Yes. Which is why Tatis did not apologize to the opponent Rangers for the hit. He apologized to his own manager for missing the “take” sign. The manager then said it was an honest mistake that a member of his team missed the “take” sign. So if that manager’s statement was meant as an apology, it was real weak sauce.
And both “apologies” were addressed to the public at large; just sprayed into the aether. Neither mentioned the Rangers at all.
Or even a just book of etiquette. There probably are unwritten rules that aren’t idiotic.
I’m a bit older, born 1962. Never had interest in sports. Dad took me to first game when I was about 14. Hooked ever since, so maybe your story is similar. Baseball just fits my personality.
The White Sox’s Lucas Giolito threw a no-hitter against the Pirates tonight (the first no-hitter of the season). He came one walk away from a perfect game, and struck out 13.
Giolito threw 101 pitches, and the 101st was his worst pitch of the night–an 0-2 meatball that Erik Gonzalez crushed, but he hit it right at the right-fielder. Other than that there was only one remotely hard-hit ball all night, a medium-speed line-out to short by Josh Bell.
Speaking of no hits…
Brewers closer Josh Hader got his seventh save of the season tonight, against the Reds. For the season, he’s pitched in 9 1/3 innings over the course of 9 games, with no hits, 13 strikeouts, 5 walks, and an ERA of 0.00.
I follow the Pirates and I watched most of the no-hitter. For the last three innings I was on the phone with a friend and I would update him as the game rolled on. I also brought up CBS Sports webpage and NBC Sports webpage and neither one mentioned the game on their baseball front pages until well after it was over. Normally, they have alerts starting around the 6th inning when someone is pitching a no-hitter. I told my friend that this one was being ignored because the Pirates are so bad.
I saw a Sabermetric type stat that said for the last batter, the launch angle, launch speed and field angle would predict an 85% chance of a hit. But the outfielder was closely-enough shifted to be there for the out.
This morning on the sports radio station, they were (of course) talking about the no-hitter last night and the one host said he would absolutely bunt for a hit if that was the opportunity. For the uninitiated, that would be considered a violation of the unwritten rules of baseball conduct; you don’t break up a no-hitter by bunting. The bunt-hit would be considered a ‘dishonorable’ hit ruining a big moment.
Now I am not trying to get into the goodness or badness of the unwritten rules in this post. But for those you think they should be abidden (I said it!), I think you should reconsider in this general case. For the last 10-15 years teams have been Sabermetrically moving their defense to get more outs. Well, it seems to me that those outs would be as ‘dishonorable’ as any hit could be. If you are worried about letting a no-hitter play out, then play straight up defense only, not even moving outfielders a few steps for lefty-righty evaluation.
But teams moved fielders left/right/forward/back for situational play long before Sabremetrics was a thing. Should batters also be prevented from looking at film of opposing pitchers? How far back do we go?
Look the game evolves. And frankly, a bunt with 2 outs, down a run in the 9th is stupid - even in Sabremetrics - whether there’s a no-no going or not.