Baseball's Most Embarrassing People, Places and Things

by Larry Dobrow

There are any number of people within sports who heap shame upon their families every time they leave the house. This season, however, baseball more or less found itself in the clear: no high-profile steroid busts, no Clemens re-un-reverse-retirements, no players smacking around their wives in full view of 50 Red Sox fans.

Ah, but there's still despair and intellectual/moral/emotional rot for those who dare to track it down. The race for sixth place starts behind these five entities.

The Seattle Mariners
You can almost—almost—forgive the Yankees this year's failure; they can blame a chunk of it on injuries and the rest on A-Rod. But the Mariners opened the season with a $118 million payroll, including $22.5 million in commitments to the since-released Richie Sexson and Jose Vidro. Along the way, they axed their manager and GM, and finished 61–101 (.377). Seattle boasts tasty seafood and gentile citizens who, charmingly, stop when the street signal starts blinking, but the city has become the Baltimore of professional sports.

Shea Stadium
Baseball nostalgists can sentimentalize just about anything—the dead-ball era, stale ballpark pretzels, Jose Lima, you name it. Yet not even Mets fans can find it in their hearts to mourn the orange-and-blue monstrosity that is Shea. When the park meets its end at the hands of a wrecking ball late this year, its legacy will be one of grime and recessed seating. Looking for a victim here? The automotive chop shops that encircle the stadium, which never again will seem so innocent and beautiful by comparison.

Bob Castellini and Walt Jocketty, Owner and General Manager Cincinnati Reds
There are many ways to handle indignant fans. You could buy them pizza, for example, or give them coupons redeemable elsewhere for pizza. The Reds, however, addressed their recent legacy of soul-numbing failure with an open letter in which franchise higher-ups were all "dude, we're totally not happy about sucking, either!" and "have some patience, you girlyboys." Already demoralized within a few milligrams of an overdose, the fan base reacted with a whimper and a single stray tear.

Kyle Farnsworth, Relief Pitcher Detroit Tigers
His deer-spearing leisure leanings notwithstanding, Farnsworth is an intelligent, sensitive guy. That latter side was on full (and awkward) display when he got all weepy-shmoopy upon being traded to Detroit. Farnsworth may have the closer's low-lidded glare and fastball-cum-rocket, yet somehow a dizzying percentage of those fastballs are deposited by batters into the bleachers. His cropped hair and zany goggles say "closer"; his body language screams "worry-wart." Pity is not the reaction a shutdown reliever ought to inspire.

Jim "Fresh Bagels" Bowden, General Manager Washington Nationals
Never mind his almost superhuman incompetence—we have a new theory about Trader Jim. Here it goes: Jim Bowden is the coolest, funniest, most charismatic, most generous guy on the planet. How else has he been able to survive years of below-average performance in one of the most hotly desired gigs in baseball? Whenever Stan Kasten and the other Nats higher-ups get ready to drop the axe, Bowden must walk in the door with, like, a bag of fresh bagels. At the bar, he probably jumps to buy the first round. At the office holiday party, he's quick with a quip, a toast and a donation to the team's charity of choice. So we're coining a new nickname: Jim "Fresh Bagels" Bowden. Please refer to him as such until he gets shitcanned within the hour.

Original here