ON THE DL

Prince Fielder Goes Nuts - Umps Fault? Plus, ESPN & NFL Twitter Reaction and What Is Your Dream Job?

Shorter show than usual, and a shorter recap than usual. A phone call in the AM turned into somewhat of a family medical emergency. But we press on.

We start with Prince Fielder going after Guillermo Mota for hitting him with a pitch. Mota was throwing at Fielder because a few innings earlier, the Brewers threw at Manny Ramirez.

We debate if Fielder had a right to be upset of if that’s part of the game. And either way, should he have gone to the Dodgers locker room looking for retribution? Perhaps the umpires are too quick to throw people out of games, and their quick hook on Mota caused this situation. If they let Fielder charge the mound and settle it on the field, this might not be an issue.

We also talk about Ken Macha’s comments after the fracas, claiming that his pitcher was just setting up the next pitch while Mota was intentionally trying to injure Fielder.

Macha: "You're focused on the wrong thing. If their pitcher doesn't intentionally hit him, none of this happens. But they are portraying Prince as the bad guy. He's not the bad guy. People pitch inside for two reasons: No. 1, to get the outside part of the plate, and No. 2, to injure someone. Our guy was trying to get the outside part of the plate. Their guy was trying to injure someone."

Last on this story, why does the AP writer include that Mota was suspended in 2007 for 50 games for PEDs? Isn’t that like getting a citation for jaywalking and the report includes a DUI from two years ago? They both did happen on the street!

We wonder if there might be more to that addition. The AP writer most likely covers many Dodgers games, so was this a specific dig at Mota? Conspiracy theories abound.

Speaking of dust-ups in baseball, read this Neilsen report explaining how Omar Minaya’s attempt to discredit the Daily News ended up giving them more than 8x the publicity.

Tech Talk:

We discuss the ESPN Twitter situation to get Nick’s take and bring up the NFL’s random policies regarding the social networking tool as well.

Some teams allow players to use it. Others don’t. Some teams are now banning media from using it from practice, but practices are open to the public.

For more on that, and on the ESPN situation, which really is no different than any other business putting out social media guidelines -- they just happen to all be swimming in a giant fishbowl -- read my post at The Sporting Blog yesterday. That links to Bob Kravitz’s story at USA Today which is a must read. And while you’re reading, check out Darren Rovell’s column on it as well, as he looks at the potential business loss for Twitter in both circumstances.

Last, you should also read Rob King’s post on the ESPN Social Media situation over at the WWL’s SportsNation page. It’s very well explained and well reasoned. Except the fact that he admits that, ”the "SportsNation" television show is perhaps the newest, biggest attempt we're making to embrace the interactive sports experience so many of us have come to treasure.”

If they are embracing interactive sports experience, they probably shouldn’t have given the show to Colin Cowherd, the most hated man in all of the sports blogosphere. It’s like putting on a show with a target audience of Jewish families and asking Hitler to host. Minus the six-million dead, of course. (Yep, went there.)

Inside The Press Box:

This could have been Print’s Not Dead but that is morbid. Joe Posnanski is leaving his hometown newspaper to join the fast paced world of Sports Illustrated. He’s been contributing to SI for a while, but now he’s officially a senior writer. Which is awesome for him, and for SI.

Dan Shanoff talked about the move, and took it to a great extension. Posnanski calls it his dream job, so Shanoff wonders what the dream job for people in their 30s might be? And what about those in their 20s?

Nick and I talk about our dream jobs in sports media, and honestly, Nick’s was a bit of a surprise. Mine, if you listen to the show, should be no surprise.

What is yours? Send us what your dream job is. We’ll talk about them next week if there are good ones.

Housekeeping:

Again, sorry for the shorter show. We wanted to get to more stories, but next time.

Here are some quick links you should read:

A woman beat the entire field in the Chicago half marathon. Pretty impressive.

It looks like, despite what the leagues want, Delaware gambling will go through. For now.