Those who have interacted with David Stearns since he became the Milwaukee Brewers' general manager after the 2015 season would tell you he invariably has a smile on his face and by nature is an easy-going sort.
But Stearns couldn't help but bristle a bit when an unnamed baseball executive attached the term "tanking" to the Brewers in a recent ESPN.com column on teams undergoing huge rebuilding programs and therefore expected to be awful on the field in 2016.
There are different ways to interpret the word "tanking." In its most blatant use, it refers to a team intentionally trying to lose for some reason.