Strange dude but we are definitely in the two-sides-to-every-story territory.

ColoradoMooseHerd said:

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Fat Bib Fortuna said:

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If you read his bio, he's the exact opposite of macho. He was absolutely obsessed with pitching as a kid to the point of not making friends, and was so disliked by his own teammates that he intentionally graduated high school a year early to get away from them.

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Not exactly the way it went, Bauer was much more competitive than everyone else on the team. Not just at pitching but from shagging balls, to hitting, to everything. Many of the other players were much more laid back as California Players often are and liked to razz him about it a lot knowing that they could get a rise out of him everytime.

Bauer was committed to being the best pitcher he knew how and knew that was not the right environment for a guy that is as focused as he is, so he removed himself from the setting and went on to UCLA and kicked ass.

Maybe you would have liked him to smoke a little pot and drink a little beer with the guys and not take everything so seriously, but he pretty much did become the best pitcher in the game.

And how messed up his sex life might be, the prosecutors and the judges said that he did not do anything that was not asked for and consented to, so no charges were filed.

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Working hard and all that is fine, but he's had issues with teammates basically everywhere he went. He hated high school; he got into with Gerrit Cole at UCLA; he's had issues at every professional stop.

High school kids can certainly be unkind but Bauer is clearly an abrasive dude obsessed with pitching (and weird sex.)

I don't like a lot of the stuff he has said in the past, but I do have a new appreciation of him since he has started appearing in Eric Sims' YouTube videos. He has joined some random men's softball team, thrown a lot of BP to random people, etc. He's becoming more relatable.