Reds manager Bryan Price has apologized for unleashing a profane rant—one that contained 77 “fucks” packed into six minutes of yelling—on Cincinnati Enquirer beat reporter C. Trent Rosecrans, but Price is sorry for the wrong reasons.
Here’s Price’s mea culpa:
This is a bad apology, because the content of Price’s rant, not the curse words, is what made his hissy fit so stupid. Take this portion of the tirade, for example:
Price: I don’t think you guys need to know everything, and I certainly don’t think you need to see something and fucking tweet it out there and make it a fucking world event. How the fuck do we benefit from [our opponents] knowing that 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 fucking people knowing that we don’t have a player here. Can you answer that? How is that good for the Reds? Well it’s making my job fucking harder... I just don’t know if that’s what we’re supposed to do, are we supposed to fucking open everything here for everybody to know all the fucking time? That’s all I want to know is what your expectations are because, fuck me, if I gotta fucking tell these guys we gotta go out there, and they know we don’t have fucking Devin Mesoraco, what fucking benefit is that to me as a manager, and our team to win a fucking game?
Rosecrans: He hasn’t been there for a week and a half.
Price: I just want an answer on how we benefit from them knowing that Devin Mesoraco isn’t here.
Rosecrans: I don’t think you do, and I don’t know that that’s my job.
Price: Your job isn’t to sniff out every fucking little thing that is about the Reds and fucking put it out there for every other fucking guy to hear. It’s not your job.
That is exactly what Rosecrans’s job is! He is a reporter, and a reporter’s job is to break news and publish scoops. Maybe Price doesn’t understand this because this is his first stint as a major-league manager, but a grown man shouldn’t have this much trouble grasping the concept of beat reporters being around the team to gather and break news about, say, what’s going on with the team’s All-Star catcher rather than act as the organization’s public relations arm.