Mariners Pres.-CEO Kevin Mather Outs Himself As A Contemptable, Manipulative, Racist Asshat (Update: Mather, Who Also Has A History of Sexual Harassment, Resigned Monday Afternoon)

Update: Kevin Mather resigned Monday afternoon as Mariners' president and CEO, following reports of his offensive comments made at a February 5 appearance at a Rotary Club in Bellevue, Washington.

Mariners Chairman John Stanton said he was "extremely disappointed" to learn of Mather's "inappropriate" comments, which (naturally) "do not represent our organization's feelings about our players, staff, and fans". However, Stanton (a minority owner beginning in 2000 who became managing partner in 2016) already knew, or should have known, that Mather was a shithead. 

Seattle Times, July 25, 2018 (emphasis mine):

In the years before he became president of the Seattle Mariners, Kevin Mather and two other top team executives were accused by women of inappropriate workplace conduct, resulting in the complainants receiving financial settlements, The Seattle Times has learned.

The complaints, which surfaced in 2009-10, roiled the organization internally, triggering reviews and staff-wide sexual-harassment seminars, The Times found after interviewing more than three dozen people who have worked within or around the Mariners organization. Along with Mather, who at the time was executive vice president of finance and ballpark operations, the complaints also involved then-team President Chuck Armstrong and then-Executive Vice President Bob Aylward.

The three women involved left their jobs. All three executives remained in their positions, and two were later promoted. . . . [T]he complaints did not appear to result in any legal finding of wrongdoing by the team or the three executives.

Armstrong and Aylward declined to comment. Mather said in a brief statement that he's proud of the team's culture and the contributions women make throughout the organization. . . .

"I think our culture is represented by the way we treat people. . . . ," said [Mariners owner and managing partner John] Stanton . . . "Certainly, we're not perfect." . . .

(On Wednesday, the Mariners issued a statement acknowledging that Mather had been the subject of two workplace complaints from female employees. The team said that it had "made amends" to the workers. Mather said he's learned from the mistakes.) . . .

Seattle lawyer Robin Phillips wrote to the Mariners, outlining complaints by two executive assistants aimed largely at Mather, according to three people with knowledge of the matter. Two of the people said Aylward's executive assistant complained that Mather had repeatedly rubbed her back and made suggestive comments that made her feel uncomfortable. In interviews with The Times, a former colleague of the woman recalled her taking steps to avoid interactions with Mather, and another recalled her privately expressing frustration at Mather's interactions. . . .

"He had been touching her back and stuff, and she wasn't very happy about it," the second colleague said in an interview. The person requested anonymity, fearing retaliation by the team.

Mather's own executive assistant said he was mean and had made her uncomfortable with inappropriate jokes and comments about female colleagues in her presence . . .

In Aylward's situation, his executive assistant had reported seeing porn on Aylward's screen after he asked her to help with a frozen computer. While she was helping, pop-up porn images filled his screen, according to two sources. . . . [C]ourt records show Aylward, while an executive VP with the Mariners in September 2003, had been arrested by Seattle police for patronizing a prostitute.  . . . Aylward would not say whether he told the Mariners about the arrest.  . . . Aylward retained his executive VP job. . . .

Mather had been responsible for overseeing the team's human-resources department until shortly after the 2009 allegations surfaced against him. . . . 

* * *

Seattle Mariners President and CEO Kevin Mather seems like a colossal dick — with plenty of contempt for his employees and possessed of a strict refusal to interact with them in anything resembling good faith. He's also proud that he doesn't give one single shit about the team's fans. Last, but not least, he's clearly more than a little racist and feel fine about broadcasting it to strangers.

That's my take. I'll let you decide for yourself.

Craig Calcaterra (Cup of Coffee) explains (emphasis mine):

Video surfaced yesterday of Seattle Mariners president Kevin Mather speaking to the Bellevue, Washington Rotary Club back on February 5. And his comments were . . . not good. Insensitive and borderline racist in some ways. Kinda collusion-y and service time manipulation-y in others. The video has been removed, and Mather has issued a fairly pathetic and generic apology — see below — but obviously nothing dies on the Internet, so you can read the full transcript at Lookout Landing. . . . 

When asked how the team helps international players learn English, Mather, speaking of former Mariners pitcher and current M's special assignment coach Hisashi Iwakuma, said, "I'm tired of paying his interpreter . . . His English suddenly got better when we told him that." Mather's opinions about English speaking continued when talking about prospect Julio Rodríguez, saying he has, "a personality bigger than all of you combined . . . He is loud. His English is not tremendous." . . .

He said that the Mariners were not going to start the service clocks of any prospects last season under any circumstances . . . saying . . . "The risk was, if our major-league team had a COVID-19 outbreak, or injuries, and we had to call people up from the taxi squad, we were a little short on players. Because there was no chance you were going to see these young players at T-Mobile Park. . . . We weren't going to start the service-time clock . . . The risk paid off."

Which is basically an admission of service time manipulation. . . . He went on to say that [two top prospects] will likely be up this year "in late April" which is exactly when you'd call them up to make sure they fell short of the amount of service time necessary to give them a full year, thus pushing back their free agency another season. . . .

[Mather also said] Kyle Seager, who will make $18 million this year, was "overpaid" and that it will be his last year in Seattle, which means that in his eyes the team has already decided to decline his $15 million 2022 option. That led Seager's wife to tweet this: "So should we put our house in Seattle on the market now, orrrrrr?" . . .

Mather made a couple of comments about "the neighborhood" in which Safeco Field sits, saying he worries about fans having to wait in line to get into the ballpark because "I worry about the neighborhood." He then made a weird comment about how (a) he doesn't let employees park in the garage across the street from the ballpark because he can charge fans up to $50 to park there, so he makes employees park down the street. Then he said that he has to provide a police escort for them to get to their cars because of "the neighborhood." . . .

Mather also said that the Mariners didn't do too terribly financially last season because . . . "our payroll was as low as it was going to get, thank goodness" and because the team's TV deal pays well. . . . He also talked about how the team likes to give out lowball contracts to pre-arb players and wants to do more of that in the future, which is something everyone knows teams want to do but something which you rarely hear them say out loud.

Overall, Mather came off as callous, calculating, and otherwise horrible. . . . [T]he apparent predeterminations with respect to various financial moves . . . is something I and other league critics accuse the clubs of all the time, but which they tend to deny or at least finesse. Not Mather. He's pretty straightforward about it.

Late last night, Mather issued an apology: ". . . I take full responsibility for my terrible lapse in judgment. My comments were my own. They do not reflect the views and strategy of the Mariners baseball leadership . . . "

Given that Mather is the President and CEO of the Seattle Mariners — and given that he was speaking at an event in his official capacity, not just shooting the shit at a bar — I am struggling how to think that a "these were just my opinions, man" apology does a single thing to make anyone feel better. He is the boss. He is the person who tells the baseball operations department what to do. When he speaks about the team's plans, opinions, and strategy, they ARE the team's plans, opinions, and strategy. . . .

Kevin Mather answers to one man and one man only: Mariners majority owner John Stanton. As Ryan Divish of the Seattle Times tweeted last night, it seems pretty clear that Stanton would not allow Mather to issue this apology if he planned to fire him over all of this. . . . [I]n the eyes of the team, Mather's primary transgression was not the substance of what he said but merely the fact that he said it out loud.

The term "lapse of judgment" should only be used, if ever, after someone blurts out a few words in the supreme heat of the moment, when in anger or distress and not thinking clearly at all. It is a nothing more than an insult to everyone listening when it's used to excuse hundreds of words spoken calmly, and with plenty of thought beforehand, on a variety of topics.