62 texts.
That’s how many texts Mets GM Jared Porter sent to a woman baseball reporter, insisting upon her attention. Eventually he sent an explicit photo. Because, still, she didn’t respond the way he desired.
Maybe it shocks you to know that the sports industry is designed for men like Porter, who was fired just 24 hours after the story broke. The fact is, Porter had every right to believe he was allowed to behave that way, and that he’d get away with it, because he’d been given every reason to believe that. Major League Baseball hasn’t stood firmly on any principle they profess to have about the abuse of women, whether it’s women being abused by players they’re in relationships with, or women reporters being harassed online and in the workplace. Our safety, and the right to expect respect, isn’t prioritized by the very industry we work in, and we work knowing that.
The larger message is clear. It took decades for a team to hire the highly qualified services of Kim Ng. The Marlins had the honor of making long overdue history. All the talk about being sure the woman is right for the job is a cover. Because if MLB teams started hiring women that are qualified, they’d be entirely changing the culture of baseball. And MLB fears that, because they don’t really want that. That’s not their intention. Sure, they want to include us here and there. They’ll run out a good press release about what they stand for in response to abuse of women. But the industry needs a bigger move than that to change anything. And MLB isn’t going to do that, because they’re participants in our abuse. To take a braver stand would require a commitment they’re not ready for.
When Houston Astros Assistant GM Brandon Taubman taunted women members of the media about how happy he was that the team had gotten Roberto Osuna, a pitcher who’d been serving a 75-game suspension for domestic violence, he too had every right to fee his brazen arrogance and ugly display of support for a domestic abuser would be overlooked. Had Stephanie Apstein not reported his actions on Twitter, and then been supported by men colleagues, nothing would have changed. Taubman would still be there, and women would be whispering about that day for years, and the trauma of it. And, years later, when a woman talked about it, baseball fans would ask, “Why didn’t you say something earlier?”
The Astros first response was to call her a liar, but, later, with men backing her up, they changed their tune. Taubman was eventually fired.
Firing people is one part of the statement in response to these types of men in baseball. But that is only the beginning. And that starting point has yet to be recognized and enforced. What can be done to ensure we are safer as women in sports media? What can be done to send the strongest possible message that harassing and abusing women in sports media won’t be tolerated? Major League Baseball has a responsibility to ask this question of their organization. Especially now. Too much has come to pass that we’ve been asked to move on from.
Major League Baseball could create a clearer set of consequences that applies to the harassment and abuse of women in baseball media. There are rules for players on social media, though lose and not always enforced. There are rules for all sorts of things in MLB. So it’s possible to take a very forceful stand and create a unique mandate. Wouldn’t it be something to see MLB go into the 2021 season with a bold statement about women covering the sport? It wouldn’t be bold at all, but, in professional baseball, it would be like passing the Equal Rights Amendment.
There’s also the message in the minors. I’ve spent many years covering the minor leagues. I built my career there, and was always known first and foremost for my work as a minor league baseball writer. I’m proud of that. I’ve had a hell of a lot of fun over the years. I learned so much about myself as a person, writer and woman. But the lessons as a woman were too often a raw scrape against my skin, and the cuts, scrapes and bruises left scar tissue. Even as I faithfully reported on the stories, players and life on “the farm,” I faced enormous challenges in order to do my job. But I confronted every single one. That didn’t mean reporting every single incident. That just meant, I came back to work again and again and again. When we do that, we begin to be accustomed to certain behaviors, and we normalize them. It’s how we survive abuse, and I was no stranger to that. That women in baseball have to numb themselves, and expect the worst treatment, often as a way to prove ourselves is unacceptable.
Sure, minor league players are trained how to handle the media. But that’s a flimsy educational experience. They’re also told to watch out for women who want to negatively impact their careers. They’re encouraged to have girlfriends, and wives, and be involved in the community, but not to be too political. Scouts pay attention to the personal lives of the players they’re interested in. Players are shaped to believe that women have their place. But where are the specific guidelines about women reporters? About respecting women as people and professionals? MLB wants to raise up players with cookie cutter personalities and cookie cutter lives. They don’t want to color outside of the lines. It would be far too radical to enforce respect of professional women.
In MLB, women broadcasters are on ESPN and MLB Network, and that image gives us the feeling that everything is different. But it is not. That’s the stuff you see in the bright lights of big media. MLB wants you to believe that’s the story, that all things are equal, and cool, and women are fully respected members of the media.
But you don’t see what we see, and hear, and feel on a daily basis.
When a coach kept texting me and wouldn’t take the hint, becoming increasingly aggressive, I remember my anxiety rising. And my thought was not to tell him to fuck off, but working out mentally how I could pleasantly reject him and seem nice, while also ensuring he wouldn’t stop talking to me for any story I needed quotes for.
There was the player who followed me from the clubhouse into the hallway, asking me why I didn’t want to see him and his teammates naked. I felt cornered and scared. No, I did not tell him to fuck off. I hung my head in embarrassment, unable to meet his eyes, as he kept staring at me, laughing, finally walking away, and yelling something to his teammates I couldn’t hear, to which they all laughed. I didn’t want to offend him by coming on too strong. I had to be able to walk back in there. I needed to remain nice.
There were the players who called my hotel room and asked me when I was coming to their room. I could hear them laughing in the background, as the ringleader, whose voice I recognized, referenced something his manager said to me about not walking through the clubhouse at that moment (the reference really gave him away). He told me I wasn’t allowed in the clubhouse. Then hung up. I barely slept that night. I didn’t leave my room. I also didn’t report anything to anyone. And I went back the following day, and did my job, knowing I was talking to players who’d been in that room. And I caught the eye of the “ringleader,” who was a coach. He grinned. He knew I wasn’t going to say anything, and that he could just deny it and not lose his job. I would have to quit if I couldn’t deal with sexual intimidation.
There’s the reporter who shamed me as easy prey in the dugout, insisting to me that no one respected me, and that I needed to be careful because my attire was bound to invite sexual abuse.
My stories are not unique. Do you know that? Do you know how many stories are similar to mine, and worse? How many stories are similar to that reporter, and worse? There are the micro-aggressions too. They’re all the time, in various ways, and we don’t speak out about those because we know there’s not a whole lot we can do about a player demanding we smile when in the clubhouse (as one major league player said to me). What can we do? Tell the manager that one of his top, highest paid, most popular players commanded me to smile? We take this all into our psyche. We go on.
Do you ever think about how few Black women are reporting on MLB? Do you know how few sports editors prioritize hiring people that aren’t white men? If they don’t do more, there are less of those voices, and those faces, and we just keep normalizing a white man’s world that doesn’t care about or include anyone else. If editors, colleagues, players, coaches, and powerful people in Major League Baseball started caring, started standing up against these ideas, and committed to flipping the staus quo on it’s ass, sports media would look very different. And anyone harmed by racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia and any other form of hatred, rejection or abuse would feel less alone, and more comfortable saying, “This happened to me. Do something about it.” We’d feel less afraid to say, “fuck off.”
But as long as we continue to outrage tweet in response to abuse of women in baseball media, nothing will change. As long as MLB does the bare minimum by releasing a super concerned statement about how so and so does not represent the values of the league, nothing will change.
This moment requires radical change. And, as usual, I expect nothing.
And that reporter who received 62 messages from a predator who intended to intimidate, manipulate and force himself on her will have to be ok with just throwing the predator off the job, and back out into the world. She can’t expect the industry she works in to actually do something to protect her and other women in the future.
And so, we remain cornered. Waiting for MLB’s courage, while we exhaust our own. Back to work we go.