The Milwaukee Brewers may not have a new fan, but they do have someone who will be following NL Central games like never before.

Thank you. In future, please try to also keep the threads in Gone But Not Forgotten articles on the topic of the player who has left. There will always be a thread for the transaction itself.

Nothing, actually. There is very little that a starting pitcher who is trailing by three runs can do to show up the manager. the crowd isn't going to be on the pitcher's side.

When Gibbons came to get him, Bush said that he wanted to stay in the game. He was of course already out of the game from the moment Gibbons stepped onto the field, because it was the second visit of the inning. Bush wasn't pleading his case, he was expressing his disappointment. As you recall, the bases were empty, two were out, Morneau was hitting. Bush had retired Morneau both times in the game, and all three times when they had faced each other a week earlier.

Whereas Gibbons was thinking that he had a starter working on three days rest, and about to be replaced by Scott Downs either this batter or the next. If Downs has to come in, it's better for him to face a LH batter with the bases empty than a RH batter with a runner aboard.

I don't think Bush was disciplined for "showing up his manager," although I think it's possible that management was concerned by just how frustrated Bush was becoming at the way his season was going. Its very possible that they thought his frustration was affecting his performance.

You may also remember that Gibbons went out of his way at the end of the year to praise Bush on a personal level, for his qualities as a competitor and as a team guy.

True, but if it was a factor those guys are way more stupid than I think they are. The thing that creates doubt is that team management has demonstrated that they are very, very capable of saying one thing ("Batista is in the 2005 rotation") while they're doing another ("Batista is the closer.")

Anyway, off the top of my head, I seem to recall four incidents from 2005 when a player acted... inappropriately? Anyone got more? They would be:

1) Bush declaring on the mound that he didn't want to be taken out (he wasn't at all animated about it, by the way - for all we knew while it was happening he could have been talking about his curveball);

2) Wells getting lazy on Tejada's hit in front of him, which Miguel promptly hustled into a double. There were extenuating circumstances in Vernon's life at the time.

3) Rios basically walking down the line after hitting a flyball to RF, which got him instantly lifted from the game.

4) Hinske delivering a routine groundball in a clutch situation; Dude screamed in frustration and didn't run hard, which came to back to bite him immediately when the ball got booted.

It seems to me that the Bush case was very much like Hinske's - a player made a mistake, mostly out of frustration. You point it out, you tell him never to do it again. Case closed.

And I suppose the reason I'm really reluctant to believe that that's why Bush was sent to Syracuse is because the thought that Gibbons and Ricciardi could be that dumb frightens me...

I must admit that if you were watching on TV, you probably had a much better perspective than those of us who were at the game. In the press box, no one noticed anything unusual, no one thought anything had happened. Someone eventually noticed on the monitor that "Gibbons is really giving it to Bush. I wonder why."

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Your starting pitcher mouths off to you. Your 1st basemen doesn't run out groundballs, and your all-star centerfielder casually shags down base hits.

It better be Gibbons.