THE JULIO URIAS STORY IS A FAILURE FOR MLB AND CLUELESS SPORTSWRITERS

The Dodgers and Rob Manfred have serious problems about the pitcher, who was arrested for a second time on domestic abuse charges but received a break when Bauer was shipped away with no conviction

     All sorts of baseball renegades are interpreting the Julio Urias story. So are sportswriters, though none should try, unless they have cases of false memory to accompany their pieces. Recently, a study showed four women and one in nine men are victims of American domestic abuse. In a land of 335 million people, that rate might rub out a few baseball teams, some of whose stories aren’t worthy of anything but a police goodnight and others righteous of 20 years in prison.

     See where this is going? None of these a-holes have any idea what to say after Urias was ARRESTED for domestic violence late Sunday night in his second furor in four years. He was busted in Exposition Park, after watching Lionel Messi play in Hollywood, and charged with felony domestic violence. They will try to discuss, including a good few in Los Angeles, where people like Bill Plaschke — otherwise, a fine columnist — should write about Messi and stay away from legitimate topics. But whatever they claim, they can’t explain why Urias continued with the Dodgers to a wretched point when Trevor Bauer never did. They’re trying to understand when no good and faithful explanation is involved, other than wanting to do a favor for one young player and hating the other.

     That’s an awful reason, guys, ruining lives and trying to help others to save your own professional standing. In 2021, as you might know, Bauer wasn’t arrested after a domestic violence probe by the Pasadena (Calif.) Police Department. Soon after, baseball commissioner Rob Manfred gave him a 324-game suspension, which later was reduced to 194 games. Nowhere did I see a sportswriter wonder why Bauer was kicked away from the Dodgers and the major leagues forever, forcing him to perform in Japan’s Nippon Professional League, where this season he went 4-0 with a 2.08 ERA in June and prompted an All-Star bid.

     Again, Bauer was not arrested in the United States. But because the Dodgers and Manfred ignored the absolute authority of the law, they wanted him nowhere near their sacred domain, handing him $22.5 million to go away forever. He was ambushed by the media, including Plaschke, who had nothing on which to base his decision other than, oh, Bauer didn’t like the media and made foolish social-media remarks. That was enough for the writer, who didn’t care nearly that much about Urias the first time. And that was enough for Manfred and the Dodgers, who could save large money by suspending Bauer for a season and a half.

     How would you like to be team bosses Stan Kasten and Andrew Friedman now? How would you like to be Mark Walter, who owns the team through Guggenheim Baseball Management? Because two years after Bauer’s nationally messy issues, here they are, finding themselves in total besmirchment, trying to grasp how they let Urias carry on and be arrested again when Bauer is pitching in Yokohama. The team decided in 2019 that Urias would not walk away, when he was arrested on suspicion of misdemeanor domestic battery and wasn’t charged when MLB took aim — sure, right. This means the witnesses who saw Urias push a woman to the ground, in a parking lot by the Beverly Center shopping area, were taken seriously enough by the team and commissioner. He was arrested and suspended 20 games under Major League Baseball’s domestic violence policy, but nothing beyond.

    A monumental mistake, you can say, that will impact Kasten and Friedman and how they’re viewed in southern California.

    I’m guessing Manfred and Walter, Kasten and Friedman, will have nothing to say. They rolled the dice on Bauer, who never has been in trouble since. They rolled the dice on Urias, who has been in trouble twice. And now, a Dodgers team whipped three of four games by the National League-favored Atlanta Braves suddenly faces the playoffs without Urias and a messy pitching staff. While he hasn’t been close to his best in his pre-free-agency season — 4.60 ERA, a career-high 24 homers in 117 1/3 innings, 11-8 record — his manager and mates were hoping Urias would come through when it mattered.

     Instead, he’ll be headed to Manfred’s administrative leave brigade and won’t be on the club’s trip to Miami, if ever again. Should the commissioner choose to bring him back, for some reason, he’ll have to explain why Urias is the first player to return after being suspended twice under a 2015-established policy. His court date is just before the postseason. Time to move on to Clayton Kershaw, rookie Bobby Miller and Walker Buehler, some 14 months beyond his second Tommy John surgery.

     So, the Dodgers have explaining to do about what they stand for in life. Jackie Robinson. Vin Scully. All kinds of legends you see on their network channel in L.A. And yes, Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman are colossal everyday monsters. But what are they now? Just another organization that gives one guy a break, then kills off another monster pitcher when the law says otherwise? “We are aware of an incident involving Julio Urías. While we attempt to learn all the facts, he will not be traveling with the team,” the team said. “The organization has no further comment at this time.”

     My business is no different. Nor is yours. Often, I’ve said I can’t stand the soft, team-heavy coverage in most of today’s sports sections. People want to blame me for my own boo-boos without going back and realizing we completely won a civil case and my record has been clean for many, many years, as it was before then and every day since — and will be until the day I perish. Doesn’t matter. People didn’t like me in sports. They wanted me out of that industry and did some work. And after three tries anyway, I don’t want to be back in it, unless the bosses get their stuff together, which likely isn’t happening. That’s why I’m here.

     But sports and baseball is out front and center in today’s world. You can’t offer one dude a big break and completely destroy another. When you do? You lose yet another World Series for the 33rd time in 34 seasons, which is what happens next to Good Old Dodger Blue.

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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.