What Happened With Mickey Callaway Again
Five women charge Mickey Callaway of lewd behavior: 'He was completely unrelenting'
Editor's Note: This story is included in The Able-bodied's Best of 2021. View the total listing.
Mickey Callaway, the former New York Mets director and current pitching coach for the Los Angeles Angels, aggressively pursued at least v women who work in sports media, sending three of them inappropriate photographs and asking ane of them to send nude photos in return. He sent them unsolicited electronic messages and regularly commented on their advent in a mode that made them uncomfortable. In 1 instance, he thrust his crotch most the face of a reporter as she interviewed him. In some other, he told one of the women that if she got drunkard with him he'd share data well-nigh the Mets.
The five women, who spoke to The Athletic on the condition that they non be identified, said that the deportment by the now 45-year-old Callaway spanned at least five years, multiple cities and three teams. Two of the women said they were warned about his behavior – from boyfriend media members and others who worked in baseball. An additional seven women who worked in various MLB markets said that, although they had not been approached past Callaway, they had been cautioned near him.
"It was the worst-kept secret in sports," said i of the women.
The five women pursued by Callaway described a pattern in which he regularly contacted them via email, text messages or on social media, and often a combination of the three. His pursuit put them in a difficult position at work given what they perceived as a stark power imbalance. The women were forced to counterbalance the professional ramifications of rebuffing him.
In response to an email from The Athletic, Callaway wrote: " Rather than blitz to reply to these full general allegations of which I take but been fabricated aware, I look forward to an opportunity to provide more than specific responses. Any relationship in which I was engaged has been consensual, and my conduct was in no fashion intended to be disrespectful to whatsoever women involved. I am married and my married woman has been made enlightened of these full general allegations."
The allegations against Callaway come less than 2 weeks after an ESPN written report about one-time Mets general managing director Jared Porter, who sent "explicit, unsolicited" texts to a female reporter while he was working for the Chicago Cubs. Porter was terminated the morn after the story was published, with Mets' president Sandy Alderson denouncing Porter'due south conduct, which the league is investigating, as "abhorrent and non tolerable in any shape or course."
Callaway, who like Porter was hired by Alderson, spent 2 seasons with the Mets before he was fired in October 2019; he was hired as the Angels' pitching double-decker later that month and remains with that organisation. Before the Angels and Mets, Callaway coached in the Indians organization from 2010-2017, the last five every bit the squad's pitching coach.
On Mondays, MLB said it "has never been notified of any allegations of sexually inappropriate behavior by Mickey Callaway." On Tuesday, The Athletic learned that MLB was launching an investigation into the allegations against him.
The Mets, when contacted by The Athletic , said that in Baronial 2022 – well-nigh 10 months after Callaway joined the organization – the squad learned of an incident that took identify before it hired him. The team investigated that thing, a spokesperson said, but declined to reveal the nature of the incident, the outcome of that probe or whether Callaway was disciplined. Callaway continued managing the rest of the season.
The Angels, when asked to respond to the allegations, said: "The behavior being reported violates the Angels Organisation'southward values and policies. Nosotros take this very seriously and will conduct a full investigation with MLB."
The Indians said in a statement: "We were fabricated aware for the first time tonight of the allegations in The Athletic regarding Mickey Callaway'due south beliefs towards women. We are currently reviewing the matter internally and in consultation with Major League Baseball game to determine advisable side by side steps. Our organization unequivocally does not disregard this type of behavior. We seek to create an inclusive piece of work environment where everyone, regardless of gender, tin feel safe and comfortable to do their jobs."
In 2018, Samantha (a pseudonym), a reporter based in New York, received a surprising Facebook request from a "Mickey Callaway." Convinced it was not actually from the then-Mets manager, she left the request pending. A few days later, Callaway saw her in the Mets clubhouse and wanted to know if she was "big-timing" him by non responding to the request. Samantha said she felt pressured to friend Callaway on Facebook.
After, when he asked, she gave him her phone number, a request she thought was odd given information technology is normally a reporter'south job – and a tough one at times – to get a motorcoach or player'south telephone number.
" Two or three times a week for a calendar month he'd send me shirtless selfies," Samantha said, adding that he'd follow up with something like, "Now you send me ane of you." She never did, just that didn't cease Callaway's advances.
( The Athletic spoke with two people who verified that Samantha told them well-nigh Callaway's attempts to solicit photos effectually the time information technology happened.)
"He would come up to me and massage my shoulders in the dugout when he thought no one was looking," she said. "For a month, he would text me request for nude pics. I started talking to people (who were in the media) and they said this isn't an isolated matter."
In one text, which The Athletic reviewed, Callaway wrote to the woman: "I bet you look yummy on tequila," with a smiley face. In another, he wrote: "Our sleep doctor in Cleveland said you lot should always sleep naked. Healthier for your skin and rest so much improve. Have to permit perfect pare breathe!" That text went unanswered. Then did his asking to take her to a Lumineers concert.
"At the bar – how many shots are y'all taking?" read some other text from Callaway accompanied by a smiley face. The woman said she never hung out with him or sent him anything suggestive in response. "I was just trying to be nice; he was the manager," she said.
When Callaway was fired every bit Mets manager afterwards the 2022 season, the text letters did not stop. Named the Angels pitching coach in October 2019, he texted her after what he claimed was his first twenty-four hour period with Anaheim, telling her that people in his new organisation had asked about her and commented on how "hot" she was.
"He was completely unrelenting," she said.
The last ii text messages she received from Callaway, in July and September 2020, too went unanswered, co-ordinate to text logs reviewed past The Able-bodied .
Another New York-based reporter, Anne (too a pseudonym), said she was repeatedly contacted over e-mail by Callaway. He had mentioned during his initial press conference that he was a coffee aficionado. Anne, who is a coffee lover as well, ran into him at a grocery store buying coffee. She recommended a identify to him and he asked for her phone number. She declined, offer her email instead.
In more than a dozen emails, which Anne says Callaway began sending in April 2022 from his official Mets email account, he commented on her physical appearance – "I tin can definitely tell u have been getting later on it!!!" – invitations to run into up socially – "Want to accept coffee later on this week? Or beer if we get beat by Baltimore?" – and multiple requests for belatedly-night rendezvous.
In one email, Anne recalled, Callaway wrote: "Let's go get drunk, I will tell you what's going on with the team."
"He was pressing me to get have drinks with him in exchange for news. He was pressing me to, or at least it felt similar information technology. I felt like, well, this guy is a source; coffee in broad daylight seems a little safer," Anne said.
She never met with Callaway for java because the idea of doing and so fabricated her feel uncomfortable, only his advances continued. He told her where he lived and commented on her habiliment. Sometimes their interactions seemed normal; other times, he crossed a line. In one case, in the tunnel that separates the dugout from the locker room area, she says he walked past her, gave her a once-over and said, "Nice wearing apparel." Another time, he insinuated her body was responding favorably to workouts.
"There were a few times we talked in the tunnel and conversations were fine. I hadn't returned his emails and it felt fine. Information technology felt like a source-reporter human relationship," she said. "A few other times, he would be like, 'I thought we were closer and you wouldn't write that about me.' That was when it was like, 'OK, this is not just someone trying to take coffee with me. This isn't just a source, this is too much.'
"I didn't know what his intentions were. You first to think, am I overreacting? Or is it more? I had been in this mindfuck for a while when I wasn't certain if I was in the incorrect or he was. But I know now. When he got fired (equally Mets manager), it was a lot of relief."
When Callaway emailed Anne – who at the time was non covering the team on a daily footing – to tell her he bankrupt a rib, she decided it was as well weird to not tell someone. She confided in both a friend and fellow reporter and showed that reporter some of the emails she had received and characterized others in conversation. The Able-bodied spoke to the confidant, whose recollection of the correspondence was that Callaway both sexualized Anne's advent and made inappropriate advances.
"Information technology just seemed like there was a quid pro quo there, too. The indication was that if she went to meet him, at that place would be a advantage," said the reporter Anne confided in.
The beginning interaction Rachel (not her existent proper noun) had with Callaway was in 2016, when he was the pitching coach for the Cleveland Indians. During that season, he made a pass at her at Progressive Field, where Rachel worked in the sports media manufacture. Callaway commented on her advent and stared at her in a way that she found inappropriate, Rachel remembers. She brushed it off. It was the type of behavior that she, not different many women in the business , has experienced before.
"He was trying to brand conversation in a flirty-type of manner. It sounds cynical, only it was an centre-ringlet state of affairs," she said of their outset interaction. "He isn't the but person who has washed this."
She had limited dealings with Callaway after that, but and then, months later on, during baseball's offseason, she says a message from him came across her screen.
"Did you lot go a new job?" Callaway messaged her on LinkedIn, with a lamentable face emoji. "Keep in mind," Rachel said, "I didn't have any rapport with him at all. I said, 'No, I'k just updating my profile.'"
Callaway made a comment about how much he liked her contour picture. And so he messaged again: "Got any big plans for new twelvemonth's?"
She ignored the bulletin but Callaway continued, trying to brand lighter conversation; she tried to diplomatically respond, without writing anything that would prompt him to engage further.
Rachel said she had no further interaction with Callaway and did not tell anyone with the Indians or anyone she worked with, though she still has access to the LinkedIn messages. She can't think if he connected with her or vice versa on the platform – or if they were even connected on LinkedIn at all. (Callaway'due south profile on LinkedIn is no longer active.) Only she remembers being surprised by his message. "I just got a real weird vibe from him," she said.
Neither Rachel nor whatever other women reached by The Athletic knew about any formal complaints filed when Callaway was in Cleveland. Ii other female reporters who worked in and around Cleveland at the fourth dimension heard rumors almost Callaway'south misbehavior with women were rampant and i of them was warned to stay abroad from him.
"You did hear rumors about him," said one of those reporters, who yet works in the media. "You heard fifty-fifty more when he did leave Cleveland (for New York), about issues with him and girls that he hit on, some that he worked with and some that he didn't. Just being inappropriate."
When Hilary (a pseudonym) first met Callaway in 2015, he was a pitching jitney for the Indians and she was a young California-based multimedia correspondent covering baseball. Before i game she was covering, he commented on the boots she was wearing and asked where she was from.
Callaway then asked the correspondent, who was taking photos of players as they emerged from the dugout earlier the game, if she could email him some of the photos she had taken. She obliged, and shortly thereafter he began to text her. (She believes he obtained her cellphone number via the signature portion of her emails.)
"He was trying to hang out," she said of the nature of the messages. Withal young and trying to gain a foothold in the business organisation, Hilary met Callaway for a beer at a bar near where the Indians were staying in California. She told him upwards front that she was not interested in sleeping with him. Hilary likewise asked about Callaway's marital condition; she says he told her he was separated from his wife. Callaway didn't button the issue, and the two ran into each other the post-obit day at the ballpark. Their interactions were normal and professional, though Callaway continued to text her for approximately a week afterwards they went for drinks. One of those text letters, she said, included a selfie of him shirtless.
At the time that Callaway was pursuing the correspondent, Hilary showed a male friend a stream of text messages from Callaway. The friend corroborated that he had read the text messages, which he remembers as "flirtatious" and, given the power imbalance between the ii, inappropriate.
Eventually, Callaway stopped texting Hilary. When asked why she thought he stopped, she said: "I didn't ship him anything back."
"Happy Valentine's Mean solar day!" read the text Callaway sent to another reporter, Lauren (likewise not her real name), on Feb. 14, 2020. Lauren hadn't had whatsoever face-to-face interactions with Callaway in five months; she ignored the text. She got another one on April 9; Callaway asked how she was doing and said, "Hope y ou guys are doing well, thinking almost you guys," referring to Lauren and, she believes, other media members. This fourth dimension she responded, writing that she was doing well despite the sports shutdown, and asked how Callaway – the new Angels pitching coach – was doing without baseball game.
He responded by sending her nine pictures, including ane of him outside shirtless on a property he wrote that he had only purchased in Florida. (Lauren shared screenshots of those pictures with The Able-bodied .) Callaway then sent a video of himself shirtless on a tractor. Unsure of what to say, Lauren did not answer. It wasn't the starting time time she had received a shirtless photograph from Callaway. He also sent her one in 2019, which she showed to a few people and then brushed off as Callaway just being crass and unaware of how that message would get over.
During ane of Lauren'south simply 1-on-one interviews with Callaway in Florida shortly after he had been named the Mets managing director, Callaway put his leg upwards onto a railing to "peacock her," thrusting his crotch most her face. She said she remembers beingness scared – aware that no i else was around and that she needed Callaway's help to report her story.
"I knew right away this is what I would be dealing with," Lauren said. "I got warned he was gross (beforehand)."
Lauren received a phone call from Callaway in early 2019, apologizing for the style he had responded to a question she had asked in a printing conference. She remembers thinking it was odd that he would call her; she hadn't felt embarrassed or slighted past his reply. Lauren besides can't remember how Callaway got her phone number, whether she gave information technology to him or he asked someone in PR.
"I felt like I had to continue up this persona of friendliness and being polite to him because I had to," she said.
Lauren didn't hesitate to criticize Callaway'southward performance in 2019, though; information technology was function of her chore and she – along with the rest of the baseball world – could come across that the Mets skipper was in jeopardy. One particular cavalcade she wrote hit a nerve. She was informed by PR that Callaway wanted to speak with her near her column. She made the necessary arrangements and vividly remembers picking an outfit that exposed no skin – despite the summer rut – and pulling back her hair.
"I remember thinking I had to practise this because this man is creepy," she said.
Callaway unloaded on Lauren; Lauren refused to apologize for what she had written. Eventually, he yelled at a PR staffer nowadays to go Lauren out of his office.
Later, Lauren learned through a mutual friend in the media that 1 of the shirtless photos that Callaway had sent her had been sent to some other woman equally well. (The Athletic confirmed with the other woman that she received it.)
Said Lauren: "He just preyed on women."
When Callaway was hired in Anaheim, Anne thought about reaching out to female reporters in that market, simply she opted against it because she didn't know whatsoever women in that location that well. Nevertheless, discussion reached the West Coast speedily, with multiple L.A.-based women confirming to The Athletic that they had been warned about Callaway's past actions.
Following Porter's termination, Alderson, the Mets president, answered questions in a video press conference near how rigorously the Mets had vetted Porter earlier hiring him. Alderson said Porter received high marks among those the club queried. When asked past a female reporter whether whatsoever women had been consulted, Alderson said the Mets had non.
Samantha, one of the New York-based reporters who detailed her experience with Callaway, wondered how multiple teams could take not known about Callaway'southward reputation, given the stories circulating among women in the industry.
"How would that be possible? At this point, it's his reputation," she said. "If they are vetting him, even an ounce of his personal life should reveal this."
– The Athletic'southward Ken Rosenthal contributed to this story.
(Top photograph: Carmen Mandato / Getty Images)
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Source: https://theathletic.com/2360126/2021/02/01/mickey-callaway-mets-lewd-behavior/
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