Astros executive fired for outburst
WASHINGTON — The Astros fired assistant general manager Brandon Taubman, who directed an obscenity-filled tirade toward three female reporters last week.
“His behavior was inappropriate and not representative of who the Astros are and our culture and what we stand for,” Astros general manager Jeff Luhnow said in an 18-minute news conference at Nationals Park. Taubman’s termination and Luhnow’s remarks were the latest in a six-day saga that’s left the Astros franchise under investigation from Major League Baseball and shrouded by scandal on the World Series stage. The Astros and Nationals will play Game 3 on tonight in Washington.
The Astros also apolo-gized to a Sports Illustrated reporter whom they falsely accused of fabricating a story about the episode.
Luhnow said Taubman’s conduct, a tantrum toward a reporter who was wearing a domestic violence awareness bracelet, is “not something that’s endemic.”
“This is not a cultural is
sue,” Luhnow said. “We have a lot of really good people in our front office, in our coaching staff and our team. And that’s really much more representative of who we are than comments of an individual who, quite frankly, this is out of character for that individual as well.”
Taubman, whom Luhnow hired in 2013 and gave a multiyear contract extension last month, was fired on Thursday morning before the team left for Washington. He did not return a text message seeking comment.
Taubman yelled, “Thank God we got Osuna! I’m so f------ glad we got Osuna!” about a half dozen times toward the group of female reporters at the end of a champagne-filled clubhouse celebration following Game 6 of the American League Championship Series on Saturday.
Roberto Osuna, the Astros’ closer, was acquired in July 2018 while serving a 75-game suspension for violating Major League Baseball’s Joint Domestic Violence, Sexual Assault and Child Abuse policy. At the time of his acquisition, Luhnnow touted the organization’s “zero-tolerance policy” for domestic abuse, but only for players who commit the acts inside the Astros organization.
Taubman’s comments about
Osuna came after the pitcher yielded a game-tying, two-run home run in the ninth inning against the Yankees. The Astros initially ascribed Taubman’s tirade as support for Osuna, who “was being asked questions about a difficult outing.” Eyewitnesses told the Chronicle that Osuna was not being interviewed, nor was he anywhere near the group of women.
Taubman’s ire was directed specifically at one reporter, about whom Taubman had complained in prior conversations with multiple people. She was wearing a purple domestic violence awareness bracelet on Saturday. The reporter posted numbers to domestic violence hotlines and women’s centers on social media when Osuna entered games last season. Perturbed, Taubman asked at least one person during the Astros’ 2018 playoff run if the posts would persist into next season.
“These comments that he made were out of character,” Luhnow said. “He hasn’t had this type of incident before. This is not a repeating pattern of anything, which is ... one reason why it was so easy for us to believe that it was more innocent than it turned out to be.”
On Monday night, two days after Taubman unleashed his vitriol against the three women, the team stood behind its 34-year-old assistant general manager in a scathing, 76-word statement that sought to discredit a Sports Illustrated story on the incident. It called the story “misleading and completely irresponsible” while asserting reporter Stephanie Apstein attempted “to fabricate a story where one does not exist.”
The Astros and Taubman were each offered an opportunity to comment before her Sports Illustrated story published on Monday. Both declined.
In a four-paragraph statement announcing Taubman’s dismissal on Thursday, the Astros alluded to an “initial investigation” that led to their strong first statement. During his news conference, Luhnow said “it wasn’t an investigation. So I’m not going to call it an investigation. It was just the information that we had quickly.”
The club spoke to only Taubman and one other Astros employee before putting out its statement. Taubman and the other employees’ recollection of the events, according to Luhnow, was “one colleague talking to another colleague and having been overheard and it was not intended to be overheard.”
“When a story comes out that’s negative, you have two choices: You either respond immediately if you think it’s potentially not true, or you wait and figure out what the facts are and then respond,” Luhnow said. “And we made the wrong decision, we responded quickly thinking that it was not true. And it turned out that that was an incorrect way to go about it.”
Luhnow repeatedly declined to reveal who approved or wrote the statement but acknowledged that he saw it before it was sent.
“And there’s a lot of people that saw it before it went out,” Luhnow said. “But regardless of who wrote it and who approved it, it was wrong, it was incorrect. It should never have been sent out. We’ve learned a lesson about it.”
It was sent to the Chronicle at 9:25 p.m. on Monday by Gene Dias, the Astros’ vice president of communications. All of the club’s public relations is overseen by Anita Sehgal, the senior vice president of marketing and communications. Dias emailed every statement released by the Astros regarding this incident.
Both Sehgal and Dias attended Thursday’s news conference. Dias moderated the event.
Major League Baseball instigated its own investigation on Monday, after multiple media outlets — including the Chronicle — corroborated Sports Illustrated’s account. The Astros “proactively assisted” in the investigation. Luhnow said “many” of the interviews were conducted jointly but both parties — MLB and the ballclub — had independent sitdowns.
“We decided once the interviews were concluded yesterday that we were going to take action unilaterally ahead of Major League Baseball making any recommendations, and that’s what we did,” Luhnow said.
Taubman joined the Astros in June 2013 after a career in investment banking. He received a contract extension last month. For all intents and purposes, he was Luhnow’s most trusted lieutenant, helping to oversee all areas of baseball operations.
Citing a strenuous travel schedule and “a pretty tough conversation this morning with someone that’s worked with me for a long time” — Taubman — Luhnow said he’s been unable to apologize directly to the three women at whom Taubman unleashed his rage.
Apstein was in the crowd of media covering Luhnow’s news conference. He mentioned her by name only once, in his opening remarks. Confronted by one reporter with the truth that the club “smeared” Apstein in an effort to “damage her career,” Luhnow was asked whether anyone else should face discipline or loss of job.
“I don’t know the answer to that,” Luhnow said, “to be honest with you.”