Bryan Price went on a cussin' spree before the Reds' game Monday night, cursing 88 times -- 77 fucks, 11 shits -- while telling Cincinnati reporter C. Trent Rosencrans why his reporting was hurting the Reds. Tuesday, he apologized. Kind of.
Reds manager Bryan Price gives s****y apology for f***ing rant
We don’t care that Bryan Price cursed a lot. We do care that he doesn’t understand the role of reporters, and that he’s trying to pass off the blame for his team’s bad play on media doing their jobs.
Bryan Price – "In my pre-game conversation with reporters yesterday, I used wholly inappropriate language to describe....
— Cincinnati Reds (@Reds) April 21, 2015 .... the media coverage of our team. While I stand by the content of my message, I am sorry for the choice of words."
— Cincinnati Reds (@Reds) April 21, 2015 First: Apologizing for your “choice of words” after cursing 77 times is like Godzilla saying “I’m sorry for destroying that building.” You can apologize for your choice of words when you tell your significant other they look “good” when they want you to say they look “great.” Y’all said “fuck” more times per minute than they did in “Reservoir Dogs.” That’s a bit past “word choice,” buddy.
But honestly, Bryan Price is missing the point here. Baseball managers cursing is not a problem. It’s a time-honored tradition. Baseball managers curse to their players. They get cheered for cursing at umpires. They curse all day every day. It would be nice if they tried not to curse when on camera, because kids are watching and stuff, but Bryan Price wasn’t on camera. He actually specifically waited until cameras weren’t there to go on a cuss-filled rant.
The problem is what he said here.
It's hard enough to win here to have every opponent know exactly what the we bring to the table every day. I don't like it. It's what I'm saying. To make it very clear, I don't like the way that this going — at all. I don't like it. I don't think you guys need to know everything. And I certainly don't think you need to see something and tweet it out there and make it a world event. How do we benefit from them knowing we don't have Devin Mesoraco? How do we benefit from that? They benefit from it. I just want to know how we benefit from these people know we don't have a player here. Can you answer that? How is that good for the Reds?
That paragraph previously had nine fucks and two shits in it. I didn’t remove the fucks and shits because I’m morally offended by fucks and shits. In fact, I’m actively counteracting that censorship by saying fuck and shit right here. The problem is that Bryan Price thinks the Reds’ beat reporters are there to help the Reds win.
The Reds had not lost seven-of-eight because of the Reds’ reporters telling the world that one player was injured and another was headed to the minor leagues. The Reds lost seven-of-eight games because they weren’t as good as the other baseball team in seven of those eight games. Price posits that this advantage was gained by the opponent’s knowledge that certain players weren’t available ahead of time instead of finding out when they didn’t take the field. That advantage is infinitesimal. The Reds did not lose because of good reporting.
Second: Even if that information did harm the Reds, it isn’t a reporter’s job to ensure success for the team they’re writing about. Reporters are supposed to, you know, report. Managers make money by being good at managing. Reporters make money by being good at reporting.
The bad news for Bryan Price is that the reporters covering his team right now will be covering his team for all 162 games. And if he someday moves onto another team, he will move onto a team that is also covered by reporters, because all 30 MLB teams have professional journalists writing about them. He will never escape the vicious horde of reporters trying to find out information about his baseball team, including information that might hurt them.
So he has two choices: he can continue being paranoid, leading to a caustic environment and a confrontational relationship with the people who play a role in shaping his public image, or he can act like a fucking adult.
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