TREVOR BAUER'S PROBLEM HAS AN OBVIOUS SOLUTION
MLB has power to ensure any player gets help
There were a lot of seamy, disputable side questions in Trevor Bauer's court hearing, like whether that phrase his lawyers used, “wholly consensual,” comes with any limits as to what you're allowed to do to somebody.
But you don't need to answer that charming legal query to believe Bauer doesn't belong in the privileged space of a Major League Baseball dugout right now, and instead belongs in a psychological evaluation.
For that, commissioner Rob Manfred only needs to consult the records.
Bauer's attorneys created enough arm waving distraction and debate in a Los Angeles courtroom on Thursday to avoid immediate legal consequences for claims by a young woman that the pitcher choked her unconscious and battered her during sex.
The judge acknowledged that evidence of the woman's injuries was “terrible,” but the fact the woman consented to being choked made it difficult to arrive at enough clarity to decide Bauer was an ongoing threat to her and uphold a restraining order.
“If she set limits and he exceeded them, this case would be clear. But he did not exceed limits she set,” the judge ruled.
Nothing was clear in a legal sense.
But the bruises. The bruises themselves are indisputable in the hospital records.
Not just the bruises on her face, though the split-swollen lip, purplish welt behind her ear and raccoon-black bruises under her eyes are bad.
She had bruises on her vagina, where she says he punched her, bruises that shocked a forensic sex assault trauma nurse who examined the woman after the event in question.
The nurse, Kelly Valencia, has done about 75 sexual-assault exams, and the severity of the marks she saw made her flinch.
“I have never seen that type of bruising in that type of area in my experience. It was frankly alarming,” she testified.
Bauer's attorney asked if the injuries to the woman's genitals could have been self-inflicted. The nurse answered simply, no.
Another medical witness — this one hired by Bauer's law firm, pathologist Jennifer Hammers — contested the seriousness of those bruises after examining photos and scans, and said they were “unlikely” to have been the results of punches. Still, even she used the words “blunt injuries.”
Sometimes the best answer to a question is “I don't know.” There are a lot of questions in the Bauer hearing that deserve that answer.
What is the line between “rough sex” and assault?
I don't know.
Did the woman set out to somehow entrap Bauer, into a relationship or a financial payment?
I don't know.
Does it matter that Bauer is a perplexing public figure, who seems to enjoy appearing calloused?
I don't know.
What I do know is that while the judge declined to grant a restraining order, the record shows some kind of violence occurred. Bauer's attorneys did not argue that. They argued everything around it.
They argued the appearance of the bruises could have been worsened by medication. They argued the angle and tint of the photos of them. They argued that the woman exaggerated a head injury in a court filing. They argued that she slept with other major leaguers, and that her motive in seeking a restraining order was impure. They argued that “the only acts of violence occurred during sex.” They argued that she omitted text messages from her legal filing that show she consented to being choked.
To which the alleged victim replied on the stand, “I did not consent to bruises all over my body that sent me to the hospital and having that done to me while I was unconscious.”
Regardless of the courtroom decision, Manfred and MLB still have a lot to sort out here. They have placed Bauer on temporary paid administrative leave from the Los Angeles Dodgers, and the pitcher remains under a criminal investigation into the woman's complaints by the Pasadena police.
Meanwhile, The Washington Post reported last week that a second woman sought a protection order against Bauer for allegedly threatening to kill her in a text message, among other menaces.
Again, the best and fairest thing Manfred can do is to go by the records, those things that can be confirmed, and defined as fact on four corners of a piece of paper.
Such as, did Bauer send this Snapchat message to the Ohio woman, as she alleged?
“Like the only reason I'd ever consider seeing you again is to choke you unconscious punch you in the face shove my first up your a — skull f--- you and kick you out naked. And obviously I would never do something like that to anyone. So cant even enjoy the one thing I sometimes enjoyed with you.”
Bauer's agent and lawyer Jon Fetterolf “strongly” questioned the “validity” of the Snapchat message.
But in correspondence with the woman's lawyer last year, obtained by The Post, Fetterolf did not challenge the authenticity of the same Snapchat message.
Baseball is a three-strike game. Back in 2019, Bauer spent days weirdly harassing a third woman, a college student, on Twitter.
Manfred has the power to refer Bauer to a board for psychological workup, as well as potential counselling, and treatment. He should use it. Make it mandatory if Bauer wants to resume his pitching career.
It's not Manfred's job to determine whether Bauer should be criminally charged or liable. It's Manfred's job to make Major League Baseball a sport that the audience can watch without twitching in anger and recoil.