Stick To Sports? "The Evil Of Domestic Violence Isn't Mitigated By How Tightly The Perpetrator Can Spin A Slider"

Here is a small sample of how the Houston Astros (and the organization's actions) are being described in today's reporting.

a mixture of resentment and seething contempt ... flailing, dishonest, offensive ...
angry and defensive ... disingenuous ... boorish and insensitive ...
tone deaf ... stupid ... insulting ... demeaning ... false ...
arrogant and shameless ... a contemptible sort of nastiness

Graham MacAree, SB Nation:

Roberto Osuna joined the Houston Astros at the 2018 trade deadline. He did so under what might be euphemistically called a cloud. ... [T]he decision to acquire him was met with a combination of bafflement and scorn. How could this happen? Why did Houston, possessors of a "no-tolerance" domestic violence policy, decide to make the trade and then twist themselves in knots to justify it? ...

The most toxic and visible level — sexual harassment, domestic violence, rape — is enabled and amplified by something more insidious: the structure that it all stands on. [Brandon] Taubman, as a senior member of Houston's baseball operations staff, was one of those whose judgement was implicitly questioned in the wake of the Osuna trade; his response, evidenced by his outburst, seems to have been a mixture of resentment and seething contempt.

Where Osuna and the Astros are concerned, domestic violence is a sideshow, subsumed in the need to win as many championships as possible. At its most important, it's a PR game ... Osuna was a good player, he came cheap, and the Astros didn't give a damn about why.

This might seem like a criticism of Taubman and the Astros. It is, but it also isn't. Sports teams exist as an expression of local and national culture, and while the Astros are a particularly stark example, they're still mostly an expression of the way sports works.

[T]here's an expectation that sports exist in its own world, untroubled by the buffeting and blowing that might exist elsewhere. "Stick to sports," or so goes the refrain. ...

Thanks to the scrutiny around the Osuna trade, Taubman felt sinned against, and he punished that sin with a tirade against a group of women merely doing their jobs. ... [N]ot only are women massively underrepresented in the industry (SB Nation is part of the problem here), but they also face abuse at frankly obscene levels. The contempt for women which boils through sports manifests itself differently in different situations, but it manifests without fail.

"Stick to sports" misses the fundamental point: putting misogyny and baseball (or racism and soccer, or etc.) on the same moral plane is absurd. There is no cost-benefit analysis for teams to fiddle with here; the evil of domestic violence isn't mitigated by how tightly the perpetrator can spin a slider. While teams can make decisions purely in a sporting sense, they don't have to. ...

Will [Taubman] face any consequences? That seems unlikely at the moment. ... But even if Taubman was removed from his front office position, it’s hard to see anything changing. ...

[W]e need to recognize Taubman is an expression of the system working like it wants to ... No matter what happens next, the truth is impossible to escape: it's misogyny all the way down.

Update (Oct. 22): The Astros have released a new set of statements, pretending that their previous statement never happened.

Ken Rosenthal, The Athletic:

The Astros had three chances to get it right, three chances to deliver a coherent statement, take appropriate action and demonstrate they understand the gravity of the issue.

After going 0-for-3 – a flailing, dishonest, offensive 0-for-3 – they no longer get to determine how to deal with their assistant general manager, Brandon Taubman, he of the half-hearted apology.

It's Major League Baseball's turn, and commissioner Rob Manfred must fill the void created by the Astros' inaction and impose harsh discipline on the club.

Baseball's investigation should take about as long as a video review of a baserunner who is out by 10 feet. ...

The Astros initially refused comment to Apstein. Strike one. They then issued a statement calling her report "misleading and completely irresponsible ... an attempt to fabricate a story where one does not exist." Strike two.

About 18 hours later, Taubman issued his own statement, apologizing for his words [JoS: Not really] but claiming they were misinterpreted. ... But nowhere did the Astros apologize for their discredited attack on Apstein's credibility. Strike three.

"I'm very disappointed for a lot of reasons," [Astros manager A.J.] Hinch said when asked his reaction to the reported incident. "It's unfortunate, it's uncalled for. For me as a leader in this organization down here in the clubhouse, on the field, I take everything that happens in the clubhouse to heart. No one, it doesn't matter if it's a player, a coach, a manager, any of you members of the media, should ever feel like when you come into our clubhouse that you're going to be uncomfortable or disrespected. So I wasn't there. I don't know to the extent of what happened. I read, like everybody. I haven't talked to every single person in the organization, as you would expect. I've been knee-deep in the Washington Nationals. But I think we all need to be better across the board, in the industry. I understand why it's a question today, and I appreciate it. But I was disappointed."

There. Is that so difficult?

Craig Calcaterra, NBC Sports:

The Astros originally declined comment before the report was published. ... [O]nce it became apparent that it cast Taubman in a bad light, they issued an angry and defensive statement ...

It's worth noting that nowhere here do the Astros apologize or even reference last night's statement which, in essence, called Sports Illustrated reporter Stephanie Apstein a liar. ...

It's also worth noting that Taubman's comment takes the oh-so-common tack of referencing the fact that he is a "husband and a father," which is irrelevant given that at issue were his acts and words, not his identity. We are not what we believe ourselves to be in our heart of hearts. We are what we do. We are how we treat one another. That's all that matters. Attempts to deflect from that basic fact of humanity are, just that, deflections. And patronizing ones at that. ...

As for owner Jim Crane's statement, it continues the Astros tack of wanting to have it both ways. There is no rule that says they could not have traded for Roberto Osuna. What made the whole episode unseemly, however, is how they claimed to have a "zero tolerance" policy against domestic violence and claimed not to be breaking it when they clearly did so ... [T]hey actually have a "some tolerance" policy — as do a lot of teams — but they wanted to act like they were better than that and deflect criticism from those who took issue. ...

If you don't have to care about an issue and you, in fact, don't care, well, fine. You may catch hell from people for that stance, but you can do what you want. If, however, you want credit for being on top of an issue, do the work to earn it. If you fall short of your or society's expectations, apologize and try to do better. What you cannot do is fail and then try to use your failure as a means of turning the tables on those who criticize you while claiming that, actually, you're really really good on the topic.

Calcaterra, NBC Sports:

I'm calling it the "Taubman Affair" because writing "the incident in which a top front office executive — Astros Assistant General Manager Brandon Taubman — taunted a reporter for her past opposition to the team acquiring a domestic abuser, after which the team lied, aggressively about it, accusing another reporter of fabricating a story, then admitted that they lied but made no apology for smearing the reporter" is too unwieldy for a headline. ...

Major League Baseball ... is not, presumably, investigating the Astros' disingenuous smear of Apstein. A smear that the Astros likely undertook because they figured they could intimidate Apstein and, what may even be worse, because they assumed that the rest of the press — many of whom were witnesses to Taubman's act — would go along or remain silent. ...

It speaks of an organization that believes it can either bully or manipulate the media into doing its bidding or covering for the teams' transgressions. ... No matter how this shakes out for Taubman, if the Astros do not talk about how and why they decided to baselessly attack Apstein on Monday night, nothing they ever say should be trusted again. ...

[T]hey want to do something unpopular: retain a boorish and insensitive executive in Taubman without him or the team suffering any consequences for it, be they actual consequences or mere P.R. fallout. Again, it's kind of hard to pull that off, so to do so they falsely accused a reporter of lying and then circled the wagons when they caught heat for it.

I have no idea how long they plan to keep this up. Maybe they are calculating that people will forget and that forgetting is the same as forgiveness. Maybe they simply don't care. All I do know is that folks will be teaching the Astros' response to all of this as a counterexample in crisis management courses for years.

Jason Mastrodonato, Boston Herald:

After those in leadership positions with the Houston Astros refused to use the benefit of time and hindsight to cool their emotions and make room for a simple apology, MLB will have to do their work for them and suspend assistant general manager Brandon Taubman. ...

Roberto Osuna, the Astros closer, had just blown Game 6 of the American League Championship Series and could have cost the Astros their season when he allowed a two-run homer in the ninth inning that let the Yankees tie the game. ... Osuna was not the star of the game. He was nearly the goat, in fact. And yet it was that moment during a jovial postgame celebration, that Taubman decided to scream his support for the organization's controversial decision to trade for Osuna last June. ...

The Astros ... used the most bizarre moment to not flaunt their own success, but instead taunt a few women in the team's clubhouse ...

[T]he Astros public relations team ... ignored Apstein's request for comment and issued a statement attacking her credibility ... But they never denied that Taubman made those comments. ... Taubman never apologized to the women, nor did he express any understanding of why what he did was wrong. ...

It's no wonder that the most powerful woman in baseball, Red Sox executive vice president Raquel Ferreira, said that when young women ask her for advice on getting a job in baseball, she always tells them, "don't do it." She laughs and then offers real pieces of advice, but noted that "every day you feel the challenges" of being a woman in baseball.

Interviewed for a piece on women broadcasters in the minor leagues back in June, the broadcaster for the Astros' High-A affiliate, Maura Sheridan, said she had been screamed at for doing her job, but she was afraid to say anything. "There's this weird double-edge sword where you don't want to make a huge fuss, but you also don't want it to happen again," she said. ...

The Astros never denied the comments were said. ... They merely offered a tone-deaf, arrogant and shameless response.

All they had to do was apologize but instead made it clear they feel no remorse ...

Jeff Passan, ESPN:

The least-surprising thing about the Houston Astros isn't that their assistant general manager stood in the clubhouse immediately after they clinched a World Series berth and taunted a group of female reporters ... It's that the Astros organization stood behind him. This is how they operate.

The Astros' response Monday night to a Sports Illustrated report ... wasn't just tone deaf. It was stupid. It was insulting. It was demeaning. It also was false ...

The immediacy with which the organization backed Taubman comes from the same strain of hubris that fueled [Roberto] Osuna's acquisition in the first place. The absurdity of the statement cannot be overstated. ...

Osuna had given up a home run and blown a save that would have clinched the pennant. So of all the times for Taubman to say, "Thank God we got Osuna!" and of all the moments to repeat, "I'm so f---ing glad we got Osuna!" he chose the night that Osuna frittered away a lead? And it just so happened to be in the presence of a group of women, including one who was wearing a purple bracelet for domestic violence awareness?

Consider what the Astros are trying to sell. That Brandon Taubman is an extraordinarily supportive person and that his comments were earnestly meant in support of Osuna. In what universe does that sort of person shout them in a clubhouse celebration for everyone to hear? Particularly with the knowledge of how polarizing Osuna's presence on the team is in the first place? ...

No, this was something darker. Arrogance, intimidation and a contemptible sort of nastiness. Something the organization easily could have disavowed. Instead, it tried to spin it -- and whirled itself into a corner from which there is no extrication. ...

This is a low moment for the Astros and an important moment for the league. On the eve of the World Series, one of the key decision-makers for a 107-win team favored to win a championship was revealed as someone who decides to use the success of a baseball team to validate the grossest sort of misdeeds. This is who the Astros are supporting. This is who Major League Baseball is implicitly endorsing every minute that it does not discipline him.

Domestic violence is a scourge, one that has existed for too long because people are unwilling to hold accountable not only those who perpetrate it but also those who look past it. That Brandon Taubman happened to say what he said now is sadly fitting. October is National Domestic Violence Awareness Month.