San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
MLB needs to sideline Bauer for longer than just one week
Major League Baseball had no choice but to kick Trevor Bauer out of the game, and good for MLB.
Yes, the decision could have and should have come sooner. Technically, the Dodgers’ pitcher on Friday was placed on administrative leave with pay, the easiest way to get him out of everyone’s sight for a week.
Bauer was accused of graphic heinous acts by a woman who said he sexually assaulted her. She obtained a domestic violence restraining order, and a hearing is set for July 23 — when a judge will rule if the restraining order should remain in place.
It would be asinine, an awful look for
baseball, if Bauer got a chance to suit up and pitch in the meantime.
The woman said she was choked until losing consciousness and that Bauer repeatedly punched her in the face and below the waist while she was unconscious, leaving her with injuries to the head and other areas.
In a recorded phone call between Bauer and the alleged victim, arranged by Pasadena police, she said he admitted punching her, among other things. Bauer has denied the woman’s allegations but did not appeal the ruling by MLB, which is conducting its own investigation.
Bauer’s representative said it was a consensual sexual relationship, and the alleged victim said the same but added that she never consented to acts that left her with a battered body.
When the administrative leave expires, it can be extended with approval from the players’ union, which needs to seriously consider the severity of the case including any Bauer confessions and check off on the extra week, which would run through the AllStar Game and provide more time for the investigations.
MLB can suspend a player without charges being filed, based on its domestic violence, sexual assault and child abuse policy, and has done so in other cases.
Three days after Bauer pitched six innings in a 32 win over the Giants at Dodger Stadium, manager Dave Roberts said Thursday that the team still was planning on Bauer making his Sunday start in Washington because the situation was “out of our hands,” a sign the Dodgers were deferring to MLB but a bad approach and look, nonetheless.
No matter what happens in the case, the Dodgers are on the hook for the Bauer contract (three years, $102 million), having signed him knowing he had a history of harassing women on social media.
Other teams discussed Bauer during free agency, including the Giants, but the Dodgers pulled the trigger. It’s on them.
Vice President Kamala Harris couldn’t have fully enjoyed
Friday, the first day she and President Biden hosted a World Series champion. Harris, an Oakland native and former San Francisco district attorney, is a Giants fan and was surrounded by men in blue, which she might not have appreciated as much as the second gentleman, Douglas Emhoff, who actually is a Dodger fan. “The blue looks very good on you,” manager Dave Roberts told Harris. Harris was busted once wearing a Dodgers cap, though her spokeswoman was quick to defuse the controversy by confirming, “She’s a Giants fan. She had to borrow a hat today because she didn’t bring one.” But does a Giants fan ever wear a Dodgers cap? During the Giants’ three visits to the Obama White House, they brought their teams from 2011, 2013 and 2015, the year after their World Series titles, as the Dodgers brought their 2021 team. Among those not present during the Dodgers’ visit: Bauer. Imagine the horrifying optics had he been there. Too many times to count, the Giants experienced a June Swoon, the road block to a fast start. The first example in San Francisco was the first year the Giants played in the city, 1958, when they had a 2717 record through May only to go 1017 in June. But the Giants never had a June like the Diamondbacks, who went 324, the worst June for any bigleague team since the 1800s. In Monday’s Giants series opener at Dodger Stadium,
Buster Posey looked at a called third strike a foot off the plate, and Mike Yastrzemski got burned as well on a twostrike pitch. Well, when umpire Angel Hernandez earns a 95% correctcall rating (139 of 146 ballstrike calls on taken pitches), something’s wrong with the evaluation system, especially when the average is 94%, because a couple of those seven missed calls ended bigtime atbats for bigtime hitters.
Brandon Crawford’s first reaction to the Joe PaniktotheMarlins trade? “He’s with Jeter.” Absolutely. Panik, the Giants’ former second baseman who was a shortstop most of his amateur life, grew up in New York idolizing Derek Jeter, now the Marlins’ CEO. Panik wore Jeter’s No. 2 as a Met and Blue Jay, and now that he’s a Marlin, he’s wearing his old Giants number, 12. Speaking of former Giants infielders, Bill Mueller, 50, is the new hitting coach at Arizona State. His previous gig: assistant coach at Hamilton High School in Chandler, Ariz. After his playing days were over, Mueller was a coach with the Dodgers, Cubs and Cardinals. The Hall of Fame made a solid hire last week by naming Josh Rawitch its next president. In the early 2000s, Rawitch was a Giants beat writer before moving to the Dodgers and rising to VP of communications, showing strong leadership abilities all the way up.
He spent the past decade with the Diamondbacks and, over the years during the winter meetings, raised more than $1.6 million for charity, a fundraising skill that’ll be necessary in Cooperstown.