Domestic Abuse Archives - Marc Normandin is creating baseball coverage, featuring leftism

Kevin Mather resigned, but the structural and cultural issues of MLB remain

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Back when general manager Jeff Luhnow was fired by the Astros for his role in the sign-stealing scandal, I wrote a piece for Baseball Prospectus titled “Jeff Luhnow is gone. Jeff Luhnow is everywhere you look.” The idea was that, while Luhnow, physically, was no longer a part of the Astros or Major League Baseball, from an ideological point of view, his influence was spread far and wide. Getting rid of the man was not the same as getting rid of his ideas, and less than a year later, the minors shrunk and efficiency was put even more at the forefront of the league, just as Luhnow and his former acolytes had been angling for.

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The year in creating baseball coverage, featuring leftism

Gabe Kapler’s hiring a reminder that MLB is still a good ole boys club

On Brandon Taubman, the Astros, and MLB’s domestic abuse problem

This article is free for anyone to read, but please consider becoming a Patreon subscriber to allow me to keep writing posts like this one.

The Astros have been in the headlines for the wrong reasons this week, as their assistant general manager, Brandon Taubman, publicly chastised three sports reporters — all women — about Houston’s 2018 acquisition of domestic abuser Roberto Osuna. Stephanie Apstein, a Sports Illustrated reporter who was on the scene, described the moment in a story that the Astros initially declined to comment on:

And in the center of the room, assistant general manager Brandon Taubman turned to a group of three female reporters, including one wearing a purple domestic-violence awareness bracelet, and yelled, half a dozen times, “Thank God we got Osuna! I’m so f—— glad we got Osuna!”

The outburst was offensive and frightening enough that another Houston staffer apologized. The Astros declined to comment. They also declined to make Taubman available for an interview.

Despite the scene being so alarming that another Astros’ staffer felt the need to apologize for Taubman’s behavior, the Astros would eventually deny that it even occurred by releasing a statement whose tl;dr is “fake news.” The slightly longer version of it is that the Astros claimed Taubman was trying to help out a player having a rough go of things, even though Osuna wasn’t even present at the time of the incident.

Continue reading “On Brandon Taubman, the Astros, and MLB’s domestic abuse problem”

MLB needs to change their domestic violence culture if there’s any hope

This article is free for anyone to read, but please consider becoming a Patreon subscriber to allow me to keep writing posts like this one.

It’s July 1, which means it’s the day that San Francisco Giants’ president and CEO Larry Baer is returning to work. Baer was suspended through the end of June for attacking his wife in public, on camera, and while charges weren’t pressed against him, MLB has the power to hand out suspensions all the same, which tends to be useful in situations like this one.

There were and are more significant questions with regard to MLB and domestic abuse, and Baer’s abuse of his wife, than whether or not this suspension was long enough. As Hannah Keyser asked back in late-March when the suspension was first handed to Baer, who called the attack “a mistake”:

Continue reading “MLB needs to change their domestic violence culture if there’s any hope”

The latest Addison Russell story is a reminder MLB doesn’t care about domestic abuse

This article is free for anyone to read, but please consider becoming a Patreon subscriber to allow me to keep writing posts like this one.

Major League Baseball has a domestic violence policy, and, on paper, it can be pretty effective. There are internal investigations and suspensions can occur without charges being filed or there being an arrest: that’s a positive workaround for the world we live in, where domestic abusers rarely face punishment or even public scrutiny.

When we see how the policy and punishments are used in practice, though, we get the uncomfortable reminder that, too often, MLB’s view of domestic abuse is mostly one where they’re hoping to minimize the public relations hit. Giants’ CEO Larry Baer was suspended for just half of the 2019 season, despite being caught on video attacking his wife in public in order to wrest a cell phone from her hands. The Yankees traded for then-suspended closer Aroldis Chapman, because his domestic abuse suspension lowered his value, and allowed New York to acquire him for less than he’d usually cost… and then they flipped him to the Cubs that summer, at a premium, because the suspension was over and so to was any stigma attached to his person. The Astros traded for Roberto Osuna last summer to improve their bullpen for similar reasons: this version of Moneyball is an uncomfortable one to witness play out.

Continue reading “The latest Addison Russell story is a reminder MLB doesn’t care about domestic abuse”

Category: Domestic Abuse

Kevin Mather resigned, but the structural and cultural issues of MLB remain

The year in creating baseball coverage, featuring leftism

Gabe Kapler’s hiring a reminder that MLB is still a good ole boys club

On Brandon Taubman, the Astros, and MLB’s domestic abuse problem

MLB needs to change their domestic violence culture if there’s any hope

The latest Addison Russell story is a reminder MLB doesn’t care about domestic abuse

MLB’s handling of Larry Baer’s domestic assault will tell us much about MLB