When I say I bleed orange and blue I mean I keep my bank account at Bank of America so I can keep my Mets card. In college, I had a David Wright poster hanging in my dorm. There is nothing more I want to see than Jacob deGrom hoisting the World Series trophy in Queens. However, I can’t pretend that I’m not morally conflicted wanting a team to win whose culture has allowed multiple men to allegedly get away with sexually harassing women.
The reports that have come out about ex-Mets GM Jared Porter, ex-manager Mickey Callaway, and ex-hitting performance coordinator Ryan Ellis paint an ugly picture of the Mets’ workplace. Multiple female reporters and team employees have spoken out about allegedly receiving unwanted and harassing messages and inappropriate photographs. In a recent report from The Athletic, someone from Cleveland’s organization confirmed that Callaway’s actions were the worst-kept secret in the league. Mets employees allegedly had a crude nickname for Callaway with people knowing about these allegations since he worked in the minor leagues.
The allegations against Ellis have not garnered nearly as much attention as Porter and Callaway. They are from 2018, but he was not fired until 2021. The two-week “investigation” resulted in Ellis retaining his job. He was not removed from his job until after Porter was removed. The team said “new evidence” emerged, but failed to expand on what it was. One of the accusers who spoke with Sports Illustrated said the team was only worried about her previous relationship with Ellis and catching him in a lie. She alleges they weren’t interested in the harassment part.
The Mets organization cannot claim they didn’t know when it’s clear this was an acceptable culture. When you have more than one employee allegedly harassing female staffers and journalists it speaks to a much larger issue than “bad vetting”. It’s insulting that the best the Mets could come up with was we didn’t do enough vetting. No, this behavior was tolerated until it was exposed to the public. Nobody was ever going to expose these bad actors. Mets president Sandy Alderson who hired Callaway in 2017 had this to say,
“I think especially in retrospect, there probably should’ve been a broader assessment of his qualifications. In terms of people, we actually talked to, there were no reservations. I think the process should’ve been broader. We’ve learned that lesson and the process that we currently have is and will be broader than it was in 2018.”
Sandy Alderson
If you actually learned something from the “bad vetting” of Callaway then how did Jared Porter get hired just a few years later? A team that was dragged through the media would not quietly fire Ellis just a few weeks ago. Two men just got fired from top positions in the organization and the Mets want us to believe that somehow their toxic workplace is no longer.
As a Mets fan, this should be an exciting time. Finally, the Wilpons are gone. A really, really rich guy, Steve Cohen, bought the team, promising to return it to relevancy. Thus far he has delivered on the field. Francisco Lindor and James McCann will now be sporting orange and blue. Mets’ fans were led to believe the Wilpons’ financial ineptitude was the worst problem. Now we are learning about a work culture that welcomed inappropriate and ILLEGAL behavior. The Mets organization needs a sweeping change in culture. Start by hiring women.
