A RESPONSIBLE TREVOR BAUER WANTS A TEAM TO SIGN HIM — AND IT’S TIME

He never was arrested or charged in a sexual assault probe, and after baseball commissioner Rob Manfred ambushed him for almost three seasons, one of the sport’s better pitchers deserves another shot

     Cast adrift from life’s anticipated norms, a displaced athlete faces people who judge him based on deceptions. Not once during three years in Los Angeles have I heard people describe Trevor Bauer’s legal case with absolute truth. Not once was he arrested or charged after women accused him of sexual assault, meaning he should have been allowed to continue as one of baseball’s best starting pitchers.

     But he encountered an administrative beast in commissioner Rob Manfred, who didn’t like him based on roughhouse comments, such as when Bauer called him a “joke” who has “no clue about baseball” in 2020. Disregarding the judicial system, Manfred suspended him for a stunning 324 games, paying more attention to a San Diego woman’s photos than Bauer’s words that they were consensual encounters involving rough sex. The judge favored Bauer. Manfred wanted him off the planet because he had power, through his league’s domestic violence policy.

     So did media professionals who, believe me, didn’t do proper homework and failed as journalists when a famed subject is derailed. Bauer was run out by a combination of Major League Baseball, the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Los Angeles Times. Not once did a top editor, before a column or news story was published, wonder why Bauer was abandoned without a blemish on his criminal record. The easiest criticism in the writing business is taking on a white, blustery blowhard even when the courtroom sends him home. No one rooted against the Times regardless of the judge, who saw evidence that a woman was pursuing a money grab.

     Early in 2024, at 32, Bauer is wearing a happier face and trying to convince a big-league team to sign him. He pitched in Japan last season but knows he could prosper for several more years in North America. Forced to leave the country when he did nothing against the law, he deserves a chance to win 12-15 games a year. He says he has “made mistakes,” but this isn’t a square apology. It sounds like he spent recent years growing up, which certainly helps. Teams would be wrong not to invite Bauer for a discussion, and if it won’t involve the Dodgers in their Shohei Ohtani era, he should earn a rotation slot somewhere.

     “I agreed to do things I shouldn't have done,” Bauer said Thursday on Fox News Channel. “It was reckless. It hurt a lot of people along the way. It made things very difficult for Major League Baseball, for the Dodgers, my teammates, friends, family, people close to me. So, I've done a lot of reflecting on that and made a lot of changes in my life to address that.

     “Not having casual sexual relationships anymore, for example. I also — you know, I made a lot of people in the media mad. I was very immature with how I handled things when people would write things about me that I didn't agree with. I should have just had a private adult conversation with someone.”

     There is backlash already about his remarks. Some humans want him to suffer forever because, oh, they don’t like his race and youth and entitlement. I could cite names of athletes involved in domestic violence, such as Tyreek Hill, who remains one of the NFL’s spectacular wide receivers after brutally beating and choking his pregnant girlfriend in college. So Hill can change his life in Kansas City and Miami, starring on HBO’s “Hard Knocks,” while Bauer has to perform in Asia forever?

     Try listening to him, instead. Think Bill Plaschke, the Times columnist, will hear him out for once? “My viewpoints now are drastically different than they were five years ago, 10 years ago,” Bauer said. “Yes. Things are — different things are important to me. I'm certainly taking accountability for my role in this. I've put myself in a lot of positions that have made things very hard for people, and I'm trying to be better.”

     The interviewer, Bill Hemmer, said Bauer “made it hard” on himself. “Myself, but — yes, myself, but a lot of the people around me, I think, are more important than the — you know, what — how hard it's been on me personally.”

     He wants to march on and help a team. “That's my goal, to play baseball here in the United States. I’m still one of the best pitchers in the world,’’ Bauer said. “I’d like to compete at the highest level. I'm also really passionate about helping people, being good for the game. I think I've done a lot of damage, unfortunately, in the first half of my career.”

     And his hard shots at Manfred and baseball’s owners? “I look back on those comments with a lot of embarrassment and regret and that certainly made the situation a lot harder on me then than it needed to be,” Bauer told OutKick. “I'm trying to repair all those relationships, trying to have those conversations with people. I've met those adjustments in my personal life. I'm just trying to do the second half of my career better than I did the first half.”

     It’s not simple dealing with bastards who think they know it all when, of course, they have no clue. I can relate myself. Not once has a newspaper finished my story from 2010, refusing to publish that we prevailed in a civil case and gave no money to someone who attempted to cash in. That tells me the media wanted to see me go south instead of responsibly following through. ESPN’s president only agreed to meet me when, during a night inside a hotel restaurant, his friend and colleague gave his room number to a woman at our table. Years later, John Skipper was fired for a cocaine episode. When readers see my Substack pieces, they sometimes wonder if jerks in my business have sent bad messages about me.

     You think? In the media profession? If only we could send police officers to investigate those sorts.

     Why can’t a team such as the Oakland Athletics, off to Las Vegas, hire Bauer? Why not the Miami Marlins, who don’t draw fans? Last year, the Chicago White Sox brought in Mike Clevinger, whose ex-partner accused him of domestic violence. It carries no logic why owners would pass on someone with an 83-69 record, 1,416 strikeouts and one Cy Young Award.

     It’s time to stop holding a grudge. He has spoken up sensibly. The sport should do the same.

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     Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.