The Other Manny: Baseball fans were treated to what ails the Brew Crew on August 4, when first base slugger Prince Fielder shoved pitcher Manny Perra during a game with the Reds. The tape of Fielder’s explosion was featured prominently on “Baseball Tonight” and played over and over on Milwaukee television stations. Baseball veterans weighed in: this kind of thing happens all the time, analyst John Kruk intoned: if you think this is bad you ought to see what happens off camera.  

Yeah, right.

As dugout fights go, the Fielder-Parra sparring match was modest: the Martin-Jackson confrontation of the ’70s was far worse, as was last year’s Zambrano-Barrett faceoff and the Ramirez-Youkilis contretemps earlier this year. In each of these cases, the main event was explained away by manager’s who preferred to keep the troubles in-house. Viz: Terry Francona told the press that the Manny-Kevin love fest was ”no big deal.” Brewers manager Ned Yost was even more outspoken when talking to the press about the Fielder-Parra face-off: ”If you want to know what happened or what transpired — blow-by-blow or what words were said — I’m sorry you’re not going to know. It’s private, it’s between us, and it’s not a big deal. And it’s not the first time it ever happened, and it won’t be the last.” 

Not going to know? Yeah we are. According to Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel sports writer Haudricourt (I will include the expletives he left out), Parra was headed to the locker room after giving up six runs when Fielder took exception to his retreat: “We stayed out there and watched your shit. You can stay out here and watch our shit.” It didn’t help that Parra baited Fielder when he nearly swiped him with his warm-up jacket on his way down the bench.

The problem is the Brewers are known for this kind of thing. The Fielder-Parra dust-up took place one year and two days after Yost became involved in an altercation with Brewer catcher Johnny Estrada and infielder Tony Graffanino — who were then (post-season) shipped out of Milwaukee. The Brew Crew was 8 1/2 games in front of the Cubs at the time, but in the wake of the Yost incident the bottom fell out of the Brewer’s season. Doug Melvin defended Yost, but a large portion of the Milwaukee fan base wondered if Yost’s volcanic temper was a good fit for the team. The doubts have only escalated since then – and now there’s a growing “Fire Ned Yost” club in brewtown. (I won’t say that I predicted this at the beginning of the year, but I did.) Let’s be clear: the problem in Milwaukee is not Fielder or Parra, it’s Ned Yost. He makes bad in-game decisions and he’s even worse in the club house. At least a part of a manager’s job is to keep the peace — not stoke the fires.

Of course Milwaukee management isn’t going to get rid of Yost in the middle of a pennant race, but if the Brewers don’t make the wild card, Yost will be gone in the off-season — as well as about $15 million of Brewers’ payroll. That is to say: this is their last shot for awhile. There’s accumulating evidence that even Milwaukee’s front office is tiring of Yost, and for good reason. Yost has a habit of saying the wrong things and, after awhile, you have to conclude it’s because he can’t control his mouth. Evidence of this came during a Yost interview on the end-of-July series with the Cubs, a must-win four game confrontation that could have showed-up the Baby Bear’s inability to win on the road. “Seriously, what this is is a dress rehearsal for September.” 

Exactly. The Cubs took the series by a combined 31-11 score. 

So if the Nats want to do baseball a favor they can stick a fork in baseball’s version of John McCain: they can take the three remaining games with the “Crew” at Miller Park and end the Brewers’ vain run for the Central Division crown. In fact, I’ll make this prediction now. The Fielder-Parra fight can mean only one thing. The Milwaukee Brewers are finished.