The New York Mets have fired Jared Porter, general manager, after he allegedly admitted to sending ugly text messages to a female reporter, owner Steve Cohen announced Monday. “There should be no tolerance for this type of behavior,” Cohen said in a tweet.
Porter sent graphic, uninvited text messages and images to the reporter in 2016 while working for the Chicago Cubs in their front office, ESPN reported Monday night. Porter sent dozens of texts to the woman, which according to the report concluded with a photo of “an upright, naked penis”. ESPN said it had obtained a copy of the text history.
New York hired the 41-year-old Porter last month. He agrees to a four-year contract after spending the past four seasons with the Arizona Diamondbacks as senior vice president and assistant general manager.
“I spoke directly to Jared Porter about events that took place in 2016 that we were made aware of for the first time tonight. Jared admitted to me that he had a serious misjudgment, accepted responsibility for his behavior, expressed remorse and previously apologized for his actions, ” Mets president Sandy Alderson said in a statement before Porter was fired.
/ AP
The woman was not identified in the report. ESPN said it had chosen to come forward only recently on condition of anonymity because it feared setbacks in its homeland.
ESPN said the woman was a foreign correspondent who moved to the United States to cover Major League Baseball. She met Porter in June 2016 in a Yankee Stadium elevator and said they briefly talked about international baseball and exchanged business cards. She told ESPN it was the only time they had ever spoken.
After exchanging text that began casually, Porter began complimenting her appearance, inviting her to meet him in different cities and asking why she was ignoring him, ESPN said.
After sending her a disgusting picture, the woman ignored more than 60 messages from Porter, according to ESPN, before sending the last vulgar photo. The woman told ESPN that she was deliberately trying to avoid him at some big league bars, and Porter’s lyrics eventually contributed to her decision to leave the journalistic industry and return to her homeland.
Porter apologized to the woman in 2016 after she saw the nude picture and wrote to him that his messages were ‘extremely inappropriate, very offensive and offensive’, reports ESPN.
ESPN said he contacted Porter on Monday night and admitted he texted the woman. Initially, he said he did not send any photos of himself, but when notified of the exchange that he sent selfies and other photos, he said: “the more explicit is not mine. It’s like jokes, “ESPN reported.
After asking if the store was planning to run a story, he asked longer before commenting later, ESPN said.
This is another embarrassment for the Mets, who have aroused fans by acquiring Francisco Lindor and several other notable players since Cohen bought the club in early November for $ 2.42 billion from the Wilpon and Katz families.
Last off-season, under former GM Brodie Van Wagenen, the Mets hired former slave Carlos Beltrán as driver to cut ties with him only 2 1/2 months later, when he was involved in MLB’s investigation into the illegal brothel theft. by Houston, while Beltrán was an Astros player. in 2017.
Beltrán was released by the Mets on January 16, 2020 – without running a single game – after a 77-day term. ESPN’s report was posted online 37 days after Porter was introduced as GM of the Mets, a role he called “a dream job”, but which is now in serious danger.
“Jared has proven himself on every level and in every position he has held and deserves respect from his peers throughout baseball,” Alderson said in a statement when Porter was appointed.
Prior to his job at Diamondbacks, Porter worked with The Boston Red Sox and Chicago Cubs under Theo Epstein, winning three World Series championships in Boston’s front office and another with the Cubs. ESPN said he was the Cubs’ director of professional reconnaissance when he sent the messages to the woman.
The woman was not fully acquainted with the English language and American culture, but received help from an interpreter to compile a message to Porter asking him to ‘please do not send any more abusive photos or messages’ not. He apologized several times via text message and said he would quit, reports ESPN.
ESPN said it interviewed three other people who said they had seen or told the texts at the time.
The woman eventually notified her bosses and was linked in 2016 to a lawyer and an employee of Cubs from her homeland, ESPN reported. According to ESPN, she did not want to identify the employee in public because she was afraid of retaliation.
She said the Cubs employee told her Porter wanted to apologize in person, but she did not want to see him. She said the employee repeatedly pressured her about whether she was planning to file a lawsuit against Porter and got angry months later when she saw the employee during the spring training in 2017, saying she was still considering it, reported by ESPN.
ESPN said the employee confirmed Monday that he had discussed the situation with Porter and the woman, but denied that he was angry. The woman did not take legal action and told ESPN that she did not intend to.
“This story came to our attention tonight and we do not know that the incident was ever reported to the organization,” the Cubs said in a statement to ESPN late Monday.
“If we had been notified, we would have acted quickly as the alleged conduct violated our code of conduct,” the club said. “Although these two individuals are no longer with the organization, we take sexual harassment issues seriously and plan to investigate the matter.”
New York quickly deviated from Beltrán last winter to quality control coach Luis Rojas, who set the Mets to a 26-34 record during the pandemic shortened 2020 season. They end up tied with Washington for last in the NL East and miss the playoff game for the fourth consecutive year. Rojas will return this season.
Cohen brought Alderson, the general manager of Mets from 2010-’18, back as team president, and he immediately fired Van Wagenen and several of his top associates.
The team initially tried to hire a president of baseball operations, but changed course when it was unable to obtain permission to interview several candidates in the majors and at least one did not want to move to New York. not.
Instead, the 73-year-old Alderson took over baseball operations, and the idea was that Porter would possibly grow to the role while reporting to Alderson.
“I think what we talked about the most is just a cultural shift,” Porter said when he was introduced as GM last month. “Add good people to the organization. The organizational culture improves.”