A: Apparently yes, because Larry Bowa (above, right) is already cursing into a reporter’s dictaphone.

This is the popular ex-Yard Work columnist and sometime baseball coach’s first public comment on anything since October, when he spoke through Jockish’s resident Bowa specialist, David Raposa. That Bowa’s season debut was an over-the-top rip of a player he used to coach is…not surprising? Reassuring, in that it heralds the imminent arrival of another season in which he will no doubt continue to do this sort of thing? Fully in keeping with his ulcerous, eager-to-punch rep? Yes. All of those.

The context: ex-Dodger Brad Penny told Yahoo Sports that, as the Los Angeles Times relays, “There were a few people I didn’t get along with on [the Dodgers’] coaching staff that don’t respect people,” which he then qualified by adding that he got along fine with Joe Torre. Penny might’ve been referring to John Shelby or something, but when the Los Angeles Daily News‘ Tony Jackson told Bowa of the comments, Bowa got his Bowa on like it was already August.

When told of Penny’s comments about him this morning, Larry Bowa didn’t even wait to find out what those comments were. He just went right into this beautiful little rant:

“You mean the same guy who was never on time, out of shape and has one complete game? He has more stuff to worry about in the A.L. East than me. He has to worry about getting people out. He was never on time, was out of shape and never helped the kids out. Put that on the (expletive) dot-com. Put it in the headline.”

…Wait, there’s more: “He never watched the game (when he was on the DL). Jason Schmidt watched the games. Nomar Garciaparra watched the games. Mark Sweeney watched the games. You go right down the line, everybody who was on the DL watched the games. But not him. He was out of there.”

And finally, there was this: “I’m in everybody’s corner when they work. When they’re lazy and don’t work. I could give a (well, you get the picture).”