Agreed that he's interesting. I'm not convinced that he belongs in just any clubhouse, though.
My read of that article is that Bauer is smart, but just never learned how to be a social creature, in the sociological/anthropological sense. He tells people the truth - whether that's what they need or not... whereas the typical social human behavior is to tell white lies, to soften things, to limit how uncomfortable you make others.
To put a classic spin on it - a man doesn't tell his wife "That dress makes you look fat." You just don't, even if that is the unvarnished truth. You varnish the truth. Bauer doesn't; my guess is he wouldn't know how to do that.
As for the non-baseball stuff... He's smart, but not knowledgeable. Smart people often think they know more than they do - they think that because they're really good at something, because they've worked hard and mastered something difficult... well, they're knowledgeable about other things as well. As someone with a deep background in public affairs, policy, and government, I notice this a lot more than most people (I think); it seems like pretty much everybody has opinions (that they believe are 'informed') about public affairs - and most of 'em can't sort from shinola. Bauer strikes me that way - he has strong opinions, expresses them bluntly... but unlike his position on pitching mechanics, those opinions aren't grounded on decades of study and experience. He's winging it.
That doesn't make him "detestable" to me; with regard to his weakly-grounded opinions about things outside his expertise, he's more normal than not. And I guess I don't fault him too much for not mastering the "social niceties." My suspicion is that he was raised that way - and it's probably doing him more harm than good (or at least will, when his baseball career ends).
