Bartender Banter: Free Harold

Well as you probably already know, Harold Reynolds is suing ESPN over his termination from the network. ESPN fired Reynolds earlier this summer for what was rumored to be sexual harassment. Harold claims it was over a hug he gave to an intern with whom he later had dinner with that night. While we here at TMS do not condone sexual harassment, we do feel that Harold seems to be getting the shaft. Plus we're still bitter that his dismissal meant having to see Steve Phillips dumb face on Baseball Tonight more. If announcers can spew all sorts of stupid remarks on the air and receive only a week's suspension, this seems rather suspicious if Harold gets fired for this and he never received any warnings beforehand, like he claims. Of course we have no idea what all has happened since ESPN refuses to say anything. Dave Kindred of The Sporting News raises a good point in his article today. If ESPN is going to show Harold the door for this alleged incident, then maybe they should direct Michael Irvin there too.

Oh and if you're interested in getting your hands on that Free Harold Reynolds t-shirt, hop on over to Awful Announcing.

Gruzdy is Golden
Congratulations to former Dodger and Cub second basemen Mark Grudzielanek, who at the age of 36 earned his first ever Gold Glove. Grudzy played for the Cubs for two seasons before signing with the Cardinals in 2005. He always seemed like a good guy and no-nonsense player in the field. After watching the debacle at 2B this past season, it makes me wish we had him still.

Bear Dignity!
Well the Dolphins pretty much cleaned the Bears' clock on Sunday. While the undefeated record was nice, it's probably best that it's over with. How fitting that the team to do it was the same to knock them off in '85, thus giving everyone even more comparisons to make (Seriously, knock it off people!). Hopefully they can regroup and take care of business next Sunday night when they face the Giants. The Bears may luck out if Michael Strahan can't play, but they've got problems of their own with the "overrated" Brian Urlacher hurting his foot against Miami.

Vote, You Bastards
Just one final note before I go. Please go out and do your civic duty tomorrow. Whether it be for a Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Green, Socialist, Fascist, whatever, just vote. Each time the elections come around it seems we get bombarded with more and more horribly nasty negative campaign ads, that use very little truth to stain the opposition. We then become disenfranchised, disillusioned and so forth, that when the day finally comes, we opt to not go to the polls and are just thankful when it ends. Well I'm here to tell you that apathy and abstaining from the election is probably the most asinine thing you can do. If you fail to vote simply because all the negative ads have left you disenfranchised, then they achieved exactly what they were trying to do.