I haven't watched BT in a week or so, but from discussions with Yankee fans (or at least with those Yankee fans who've been disgusted with the way the Yankee Stadium crowd has treated ARod) it seems that Reynolds has been sticking up for ARod on the show.

Kruk has too, but I suspect that the producers of the show, in an effort to muster controvery and ratings have been egging on the idiotic Steve Phillips in his attacks on ARod and calls for him to be traded, and that Reynold's basically said "enough, I'm not going to participate in this charade. Stop with the soap opera story lines."

No network fires a talking head for that.

For giving the producers an ultimatum as to how they run their show?

I dunno. What do you think it was? Personally, I hope it's because he punched Phillips in the face, and the suits chose Stevie-boy over Harold.

Something that would hurt rather than drive up ratings.

Well, if this ARod hoopla is actually driving up ratings, and HR refused to go along with the ARod soap opera storyline . . .

then you'd put him on camera alone to make his case and then let Phillips rebut him.

The Extra Innings package makes BBTN blissfully unnecessary. But the Google news cache says Reynolds agreed with Phillips that A-Rod should be traded. So I doubt that it was a punchout betwen Reynolds and Phillips. Maybe Kruk and Reynolds didn't get along.

Or maybe Reynolds just bored everybody to death. Some are wondering about sexual harassment, but that talk seems strictly out the wazoo.

Casey: What else could get someone fired so suddenly in this day and age?

Hey, at least Harold can now join up with his old buddy, Rob Dibble, at FSN. Didn't Rob slug someone at some ESPN party?

oj's probably seen this since he turned me on to Ballbug (wait, that sounds real real bad), but they had a link to a piece at the site Deadspin where:

(a) a bunch of anonymous ESPN folks emailed from ESPN saying multiple instances of sexual harassment (ie hitting on chicks) got HR canned

followed by:

(b) another anonymous email from Bristol CT saying the others are regurgitating ESPN's butt-covering spin and that:

"Harold has had a couple of rather heated arguments with the producers at "Baseball Tonight," and some of the suits at ESPN over the program's coverage of Alex Rodriguez. At the last production meeting, when it was made clear they were going to really play up the A-Rod angle during coverage of the Yankees-Texas series, Harold had a colossal meltdown, which led to his dismissal. The sexual harassment allegations are even more laughable when you consider that he is being replaced by Steve Phillips -- a man who has never met a skirt he wouldn't chase and who was caught in one of the more embarrassing front office sexual harassment scandals in MLB history."

Of course, I totally believe this last anonymous email, b/c it agrees with my suspicions. So there.

Looks like the sexual harassment stuff wasn't out the wazoo, at least according to Reynolds himself. According to a New York Post story that quotes Reynolds, it was a "total misunderstanding" with a female co-worker.

I still think he just bored everybody to death. Reynolds is trying to get his job back.