One Manager. Five Minutes. 77 F-Bombs.

Bryan Price AP

On Monday, before the Cincinnati Reds defeated the Brewers 6-1 in Milwaukee, an irritated Reds manager Bryan Price exploded in rage at the media for revealing on Sunday that All-Star catcher and cleanup hitter Devin Mesoraco had not joined the team for Sunday’s game against St. Louis.

Price’s five-minute, 34-second Vesuvius overflowed with expletives, including 77 occurrences of the F-word or its equivalent and 11 uses of a substitute for fecal matter. He ripped the media for revealing Mesoraco’s absence, which gave the opposition information useful to them, as he could not be used as a pinch hitter if the situation called for it, saying, “I don’t know what the importance is for everyone to know if we have a player that’s not here. We don’t benefit at all from the other teams knowing we don’t have a player.”

The Reds had lost four straight games and seven of their last eight before Monday’s win, contributing to Price’s frustration.

He also blasted the Cincinnati Enquirer for reporting that Mesoraco and Tucker Barnhart had shared a flight to St. Louis, thus anticipating the Reds telling catcher Kyle Skipworth he was being demoted to make room for Barnhart on the Reds’ roster.

The Enquirer also reported that when the Reds said that Mesoraco had a “hip impingement” that could be far more serious than the Reds were letting on, as it could mean surgery, and unlike Troy Tulowitzki and Alex Rodriguez, who had the surgery, Mesoraco’s as a catcher could jeopardize his career.

On Monday, Trent Rosecrans of the Enquirer prompted the explosion, asking, “ … as a fan, I’m wondering, here’s a spot for Devin Mesoraco, why isn’t he there? 

Price: Where was the spot?

Rosecrans: : As a pinch-hitter? He’s an All-Star with 25 home runs last year, I know I asked if it was a left-handed bat thing, you said no.

Price: I don’t get it. It’s, you know, look, I don’t need you guys to be fans of the Reds, I just need to know if there’s something we want to keep here, it stays here. We don’t need to know that Tucker Barnhart’s in the f****** airport when we haven’t spoken to Kyle Skipworth. I think we owe that f******* kid the right to be called and told that he’s going to be sent down as opposed to reading that Tucker Barnhart is on his way from Louisville. I just… I don’t get it. I don’t get why it’s got to be this way. Has it always been this way where we just tell f****** everybody everything? So every f****** opponent we have has to know exactly what we have. Which f****** relievers are available, which guys are here and which guys aren’t here, when they can play, and what they can do. It’s nobody’s f****** business. It’s certainly not the opponent’s business. We have to deal with this f****** b*******.

I like to talk — and I have spoken as candidly as I can with you people, if that’s not good enough, I won’t say a f******thing. I’ll go, ‘yes sir, no sir.’ And I can do that. But f***, I’ve been as candid as I can f****** be about this team and our players, and we’ve got to deal with this s***, every f****** team that we f****** play has to know every f****** guy that’s here and what they can and can’t do? F*** me. It’s a f****** disgrace. I’m f****** sick of this s***. It’s f****** hard enough to f****** win here to have f****** every f****** opponent know exactly what the f*** we bring to the table every day. It’s f****** horse****. I don’t like it. It’s what I’m saying. To make it very clear, I don’t like the way that this s***’s going — at all. I don’t like it. I don’t think you guys need to know everything. And I certainly don’t think you need to see something and tweet it out there and make it a f****** world event. How the f*** do we benefit from them knowing we don’t have Devin Mesoraco? How do we benefit from that? They benefit from it. I just want to know how we benefit from these f****** people know we don’t have a player here. Can you answer that? How is that good for the Reds?

Rosecrans: I don’t know…

Price: Yeah, well it’s making my job f****** harder.

Rosecrans: I’m sure it is.

Price: Well, thank you. I don’t know if that’s what we’re supposed to do. Are we supposed to f****** open up everything here for everybody to know all the f****** time? That’s all I want to know, what your expectations are, because f*** me. If I’ve got f****** to tell these guys, we gotta go out there and they know we don’t have f****** Devin Mesoraco, what f****** benefit is that to me as a manager? And our team to win a f****** game?

Rosecrans: He hasn’t been there for a week-and-a-half

Price: I just want an answer on how we benefit from them knowing that Devin Mesoraco isn’t here.

Rosecrans: I don’t think you do and I don’t know that that’s my job.

Price: Your job is not to sniff out every f****** thing is about the Reds and f****** put it out there for every other f****** guy to hear. It’s not your job. You want me to be candid with you? I’ve been candid with you. I f****** talk to you guys like men, I tell you what the f***’s going on with the team, I tell you how I’m feeling as candidly as I can and then this s***? You’ve got to watch this f****** s***? I’ve got to f****** read that on a f****** Tweet on our own people in here that we don’t have a f****** player? How the f*** does that benefit the Reds? It doesn’t benefit us one f****** bit. God **** we try to go out there and win f****** games and I got to come in here and then you guys f****** blow it all over the f****** place? Who we can play? Who we can’t? I’ll tell you what you want to know, I’m not going to f****** lie to you. I didn’t tell you f****** s***.

Rosecrans: You did not lie to me and I appreciate it.

Price: Ah, f***. I’m just, I’m f****** p****** up a rope in this f****** business. Because everyone has to know everything all the f****** time. That’s not my f****** obligation, it’s not their obligation. You know why f****** Billy Hamilton didn’t f****** play? The other day? Because his f****** finger’s hurt and he couldn’t hit right-handed comfortably. Right? So that’s something that I need to know and no one else needs to know. No one else needs to f****** know it, and all of a sudden it’s out there. His f****** fingers are sore. It doesn’t benefit us. It wasn’t from you, but it doesn’t benefit us one bit to f****** announce to the f****** other teams that we’re playing to bring in lefties when they need to f****** get Billy out. There’s no benefit. So, I’m f******, to be honest with you, I’m f****** sick of this s***. I’m sick of listening to this f****** s***, I’m sick of f****** the f****** second-guessing b*******, you guys can do whatever the f*** you want, but I’ll tell you this — I’m not going to f****** tell you everything about this f****** club, because you f****** guys are going to out there and sniff it out anyway. I don’t f****** like it one f****** bit. I bend over backwards to be honest and direct with you f****** guys and you stick it right up my f****** a** — and the f****** team’s a**. And I’m sick of it. What do you got? If you don’t got anything, get out and I’ll do this f****** interview with Marty. You don’t have anything? Just get out, please.

Price has since apologized for using “wholly inappropriate” language. “While I stand by the content of my message,” he explained, “I am sorry for the choice of words.”

The 6-7 Reds play the 2-11 Brewers tonight in Milwaukee at 8:10 Eastern time.

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