The Happy Hands of Harold Reynolds

Things were going so well for Northwest native Harold Reynolds: he played twelve strong seasons at second base for the hometown nine, leading the league in stolen bases, triples, and at-bats in various years. In fact, he's the only guy to lead the league in steals in the 1980s other than Rickey Henderson. He was a two-time All-Star, and a Roberto Clemente award winner in 1991.

After leaving the game in 1994, he signed up at then sports-centric network ESPN, becoming a baseball analyst. He eventually came to be a staff regular on Baseball Tonight, alongside stalwart Peter Gammons. Lately he had found himself back near the field, doing commentary for the College and Little League World Series.

By all accounts our man Harold was on the rise. Sadly, though, the last few days have seen this tale take a ghastly turn.

This may come as a shock to some Seattlest readers, but ESPN has quite the history of sexual harassment, and once our good friend Harold found himself in that kind of tawdry environment, well, apparently he succumbed to all to those terrible vices: on Monday he was fired from the network for what's rumored to be a pattern of inappropriate behavior. No mention of whether this behavior included John Kruk.

Reynolds, in his own defense, sort of, we think, has claimed that it's a complete misunderstanding. Just the friendliest of hugs between coworkers that's been terribly misinterpreted. Now, we're not sure about where you work, but at Seattlest we hug each other all the time. Why, not a day goes by without a gleeful dry hump or well-intentioned ogling. It's just our caring nature. So we can sort of see where Harold's entirely professional glad-handing has got him in trouble.

We wish Harold the best of luck in what's clearly a futile effort as he tries to get his old job back. And, really, who wouldn't want to sit between John Kruk and Steve Philips (of his own questionable history) on Baseball Tonight as they attempt to do anything but make sense? An enviable position for sure.

And if the Mariners should find themselves in need of a good color man- you know, if Ron Fairly or Dave Valle should disappear in the dark of night - then consider it an official Seattlest recommendation to get Harold on board.

Take a look back at some of Harold's lesser moments on Baseball Tonight with Fire Joe Morgan.