Bryan Price F-bomb incident is an unfortunate part of the game

Long before there was Internet, a few of us gathered in the manager’s office of what was becoming a routinely glum clubhouse. The manager was a large man. When he was glum, he glummed enough for everyone.

After losses, and there were a lot of them, it could be difficult to get the conversation going. Every question seemed fine in your head and even as it began to form in your mouth, but, somehow, by the time it had wriggled loose, freed itself and fell sadly into the abyss of glumness, it was the dumbest question since, “Really, Brute, you too?”

This manager, a really fine fellow for the better part of 23 hours and 45 minutes every day, would sit behind his desk, cigarette smoldering near his fingers, and practically dare someone to ask … something … anything. That office was so quiet you could hear that cigarette burn. Least you assumed it was the cigarette.

The trick was to lob one up there, get the conversation started, hope not to lose a limb, and then everybody could get on with their lives and deadlines.

“So,” began one of my colleagues …

Up went an eyebrow.

“I mean,” he continued …

Exasperation registering in chin and forehead areas.

“Not to second-guess,” he tried …

Hol-eee crap.

This was not a softball at all. Oh no. No softball has ever begun with those words. “Not to second-guess” to a ball writer is the “with all due respect” to the outside world. It means, “I’m about to point out something you did that I believe was not very bright.” Several of us rocked back on our heels, as the door – freedom – was back there.

The nice-guy-except-for-now manager raised his hand. On cue, my colleague’s mouth snapped shut.

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And along came the words that still resonate to all who were in that room, low and growly, the noise you’d hear in the woods at the precise moment you knew it was too late.

“You … better … [expletive] … not.”

Wee!

Which sort of brings us to Bryan Price, whatever he was trying to get at Monday afternoon, and the folks whose hair he blew back while stuck on the “F” page in the urban dictionary. Ungentlemanly? Yes. A bit clueless? Of course. Entertaining? By all means.

Harmful? Nah.

Unexpected? From him, maybe. But not the first like it, and not the last.

Maybe the weirdest part was Price’s total misunderstanding of what reporters do for a living, even in an environment where managers and reporters spend so much time together professional lines can smudge. It just happens. You are, at the end of the day, two human beings who presumably like – and even committed their lives to – the same thing: going to the ballpark every day. That’s a lot to have in common. Same time, it’s a lot of time to spend with someone when that’s the beginning and end of it.

Price was, of course, out of line. The condescending tone, the volume, the context, the logic, all of it. Maybe, by now, Price understands reporters are not trying to win games for him. Neither are they trying to lose them. They really just show up, watch, ask some questions and go home. My guess is Price was displeased with how the Reds were playing, the news uncovered by the Cincinnati Enquirer (that a player wasn't with the team) wasn’t making things any easier, and, well, there sat reporter C. Trent Rosecrans. One of them handled the moment with poise and professionalism. It happens.

And still, honestly, I don’t know how they – managers – do it anymore. Yeah, Price makes good money to manage his baseball team. Some of that money goes toward standing there before games and after games, representing the club with something like dignity, and yet somewhere around the ninth “talk about” question you can see the man’s brain drain from his ears. The proliferation of media is great – really great – for fans both committed and casual. It also, in a circular kind of way, has helped the game reap these record revenues, which in turn advances the lifestyles of those playing it, managing it, coaching it. That’s not to say they owe anything to anyone, but merely to point out there is some benefit to having all those cameras and notebooks around.

I’m sure it’s a pain. I’m sure they’d rather be hitting fungoes. I’m sure they’d rather be putting together the next day’s lineup, so that Twitter can get to work on that. I’m sure they’d love to be the filter. It is all so relentless, I’m frankly surprised dust-ups like Monday’s in Milwaukee don’t happen more often.

Bryan Price can handle this on his own. He strikes me as a reasonable man who veered into an unreasonable moment. He screwed up. Happens.

You know, not to second-guess.

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