Reynolds Tossed

Posted:
Sun :: 30 :: Jul :: 2006 :: 08.16 pm

Categorized:
Commentary, Sports, Television

Tagged:
Baseball, Bill Simmons, Harold Reynolds, John Kruk, Peter Gammons

Commented:
3 times (now closed)

Reynolds Tossed

I was pretty bummed out to hear that Harold Reynolds was fired by ESPN earlier in the week. Besides Peter Gammons, Harold was my favorite part of watching Baseball Tonight. When they had Karl Ravech, Bobby Valentine (or Buck Showalter), Harold and Peter on all at the same time, it was must-watch because they had a great dynamic.

The show hasn’t quite been the same since Buck or Bobby got back to managing and we now have to deal with John Kruk. Peter had already been increasingly absent and this year was doing the Sunday game of the week before his aneurysm, so I had already been missing the show more often than not. The guys they have been bringing in have, well… let’s just say are very boring and suck.

Anyway, I obviously thought Harold brought a lot to the table and I’m pretty sure I’ll watch even less than I already was now that he is gone too. Reporting on the exact cause has been spotty at best, but according to Harold himself, it was for sexual harassment and was a misinterpretation by the other party. I can’t really comment on the thing, because we don’t know exactly what happened even though Harold says it was just a hug. He very well could have been dinged or suspended in the past for it and we don’t know.

What I have heard is that Mike Tirico hits on everything that moves over at ESPN (I wanna say I heard this from someone being interviewed on WEEI’s D&C show; might have been Bill Simmons, but I’m not positive). This digg.com thread confirms what I remembered and points out that Tirico is going to be hosting Monday Night Football.

Tirico gets one of the top jobs in the company even though he sucks, stalked and reportedly raped an intern. Harold gets the axe for hugging a woman? Yeah, that seems like a pretty even policy.

Again, I don’t know any more details than what I have read and heard, but this doesn’t seem right to me. Maybe Harold has done a lot worse in the past and this was his final strike. I’m just bummed.

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This post has 3 comments (now closed):

Ed

Sun :: 30 :: Jul :: 2006 :: 08.43 pm

Simmons said that you have to do something really awful to get fired from ESPN – that they have a stringent unofficial five strikes policy. He also made two other great points – this is terrible timing for ESPN with Gammons out (and Reynolds being as popular as he is) and ESPN (nor any other network) is just going to cut a ‘color’ commentator in this day and age. That coupled with ESPN suprisingly terse “Harold Reynolds no longer works for this network. ESPN will have no further comment.” – leads one to believe that this is much more than a hug. What would you expect Reynolds to say? There’s got to be a lawsuit waiting in the wings – his admission of a hug is probably giving his lawyers fits as it is.

Sean

Sun :: 30 :: Jul :: 2006 :: 09.38 pm

Was that recently that Simmons said that? I’m thinking back to an interview prolly 4-5 months ago.

Make no mistake, I am under no misconceptions that Harold likely had past strikes against him. Getting fired for a first offense probably takes something egregious in most companies, but we only know what he said since, as you note, ESPN has failed to comment.

What it does come down to is I’m pissed about Harold being fired and Tirico still being employed. I think he ended up dealing his way out of those accusations, but right now, without more facts, it doesn’t seem fair at all.