Astros exec’s behavior bad, and team’s response worse

There’s really nothing normal about a baseball clubhouse. Not as a working environment for those who all but live there. Not as an outsider invited in during select times to interview its inhabitants. And most of all, not as a woman.

It’s a terrible thing to say 2019, but it’s the truth. And it’s a truth all the men in those clubhouses need to be conscious of, because all the women certainly are. It was true before Saturday night, when a Houston Astros executive turned to three female reporters and celebrated, in vulgar terms, the Astros’ employment of a pitcher who was suspended 75 games for allegedly beating the mother of his then 3-year-old child. And it will be true Tuesday night, after Game 1 of the World Series, and going forward.

There are two issues in the wake of Sports Illustrated’s recounting of the actions of Brandon Taubman, Houston’s assistant general manager: The first has to do with the Astros’ handling of the matter, which is reprehensible. The second has to do with baseball’s culture, in the clubhouse and the dugout and beyond, which needs to evolve.

Start with what SI reported, and look at how the Astros responded. In celebrating his team’s victory over the New York Yankees in the American League Championship Series, Taubman looked at three women reporters and repeatedly yelled, “Thank God we got Osuna! I’m so [expletive] glad we got Osuna!” Stephanie Apstein of Sports Illustrated was one of the women, and she wrote SI’s account. One of the women was wearing a purple anti-domestic violence bracelet.

I was not there. The SI account called it “frightening.”

It has since been verified by at least four people present, including a male reporter. I believe the SI account.

Who’s Osuna? That would be Roberto, the pitcher who gave up the game-tying homer in the ninth inning, meaning the Astros needed Jose Altuve’s walk-off shot to win Game 6 and clinch the pennant. Roberto Osuna is also the closer who became available to Houston in a trade with Toronto because of the domestic violence charges against him. Those charges were eventually dropped when the alleged victim went back to her home country of Mexico and refused to testify. Osuna agreed not to contact her for a year.

This is the bargain the Astros made when they traded for him: ignore the past because maybe he’ll help the team win. It did not sit well with everyone in the organization.