Mets Ticket SVP Allegedly Fired for Being Single Mother
Oh my … following up on the Leigh Castergine story, it turns out that the investigative journalists WERE in fact doing their due diligence — it just took a week to gather the facts.
According to The New York Post, Jeff Wilpon fired Leigh Castergine because “he was morally opposed” to her out-of-wedlock pregnancy.
Wow. Just, wow.
I’m not sure how the Wilpons will be able to keep the Mets, considering the recent bad PR situations created by the owners of the NBA Clippers and Hawks. But this will be an interesting story to see develop.
You can read the entire filed complaint by Castergine vs. Wilpon and the Mets here.
I get that it’s her decision to make this a public case, but it wasn’t her decision to be treated like she was a secretary on Mad Men (worse, actually).
Given the current reputation of the Mets ownership, I don’t think the “whistleblower” tag will have much of an impact. And if this is an isolated case, it’s not much of a whistleblower situation, anyway.
It doesn’t even matter if she “chose” to go public – its almost guaranteed this would have come out in the media. She’s apparently very smart, so I’m sure she considered the ramification of filing a complaint.
* And as an aside, we see a lot of people thrust into the public eye for a negative reason eventually benefit from it in the long (or even short) run – financially, notoriety, etc. That’s how the world works these days.
I find it interesting she went to HR. I hope for her sake that her complaints were properly documented. A person with her position & experience should know that HR mainly represents Management, not the employee.
Anyway, her allegation shows bias on her part, naturally. For example, she states that the Mets traded away Cy Young Award winner RA Dickey… but she doesn’t mention that he was in his late 30’s, or that he was traded for the top catching prospect in MLB (who is now the current starting catcher for the Mets), and the Mets also received one of the top pitching prospects in baseball. Dickey has been an average pitcher since the trade… so that particular transaction actually shows excellent business savvy & baseball acumen by the Mets.
And letting Reyes walk… well, since he left the Mets, his performance has decreased and he’s missed the equivalent of a 1/2 season due to injury… so not re-signing him for the big bucks was not the worst thing in the world.
Really, if her point is to make the Mets look bad from a player personnel standpoint, it won’t happen. Sandy’s had a couple of bombs (bullpen guys, Chris Young) but he’s done some very good things.
None of that really matters much, though, as it’s simply the filing of the initial complaint.
http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2014/09/10/a-few-thoughts-about-the-discrimination-lawsuit-against-the-mets/
He is an attorney who previously specialized in employment discrimination defense work. In short, the allegations here are specific and detailed, including references to particular emails. It looks quite bad for Jeffy.
With all that said, I am less optimistic than your initial reaction as to whether this might force the Wilpons to sell. The Sterling situation gives some hope since it’s the only apparent category of exception to the notion that “you can’t get rid of a bad owner.” But Buddy (and, presumably, his successors) loves the Wilpons; we’ve already seen them survive a suit accusing them of being aware of the Madoff scheme before that fell apart.
I think the most likely outcome here is that they pay her a substantial settlement to go away, and that amount is deducted out of the Mets payroll (while the front office repeatedly claims that the suit/settlement will have zero impact on team spending). Would be much better if this forced them to sell to an owner interested in fielding a winner instead of extracting SNY revenues at minimal expense, but unfortunately I think that’s about as likely as Sandy’s 90 win season at this point– mathematically and theoretically possible, but extraordinarily unlikely.
If her story is reasonably accurate, she could really hold them up for serious dollars. The Wilponzis might even be put in a situation where that have to choose between settling with Castergine for megamillions or lose the team. What if li’l Jeff is a big-time misogynist?
I’m very close with a former HR VP of one of the country’s largest insurance companies.
I kind of got that sense when my company made me undergo a long training and take multiple quizzes and the “correct” answer to EVERY question was “go to HR”.
That said, I have no idea how to “make a complaint” without mentioning names — that pretty much ensures that HR won’t be able to help me, so it both gives them a pass for non-action and tips them off that I must be planning to deal with it another way.
You write:
“Mets Ticket SVP Fired for Being Single Mother”.
Uh, no. She has ALLEGEDLY been fired for being a single mother. That is her contention and while it may be true it also be proven completely false.
So the correct title should be:
“Mets Ticket SVP Allegedly Fired for Being Single Mother”.
You write this title as if it was a fact that the Mets did this when it is a mere statement of opinion by an interested person who has A LOT to gain if this is proven true.
The Donald Sterling mess involved race which is the biggest lightning rod other than domestic violence and (not much related to sports) immigration and Obamacare; this lawsuit won’t cause the same furor as the racially-charged Clippers and, to a lesser extent, Hawks matters.
Further, the Sterling mess involved incontrovertible evidence: Sterlng’s own voice on tape saying stupid racial comments. Same for the Atlanta Hawks owner: smoking gun of emails.
Let’s see what type of proof this woman has before we attack the Wilpons and write blog spots that say “Mets Ticket SVP Fired for Being Single Mother”. People in big business get sued every day over frivolous, immaterial nonsense and most such lawsuits get shown to be exactly that: nonsense and dismissed by the court in a summary judgment proceeding. Even if there is a triable claim, in this type of instance the claim is usually settled out of court for something like a year or maybe two year’s salary…again, if there is evidence and the Wilpons make a settlement offer.
Stating in the comments section on the other post entitled “Mets Fire SVP of Ticket Sales” that legal fees and settlement are going to cost “at a minimum” $18 to $20 million dollars, which is what Colon and Murphy will cost in 2015, is a huge exaggeration.
Nothing has been proven in a court of law: she is merely alleging discrimination, which must be proven or the case will be dismissed (or perhaps settled even if the evidence is light if the Wilpons want to avoid the negative publicity of a court proceeding).
If discrimination is proven in this case the legal fees plus settlement in a New York case like this will not cost “at a minimum” $18 to $20 million.
I know it seems like I am shilling for the Wilpons sometimes on this blog, but I am just playing devil’s advocate because I think some of the criticism is unfair.
I do think – as said a week or so ago – that the Wilpons are among the worst owners in sports but largely get a pass from mainstream media because they don’t do anything controversial like many of the other owners who are cited as among the worst.
So again I think some of the criticism on this blog is well-deserved but a bit is a little over the top. Let’s see what this woman has in terms of evidence before we convict the Wilpons.
Thanks for your always good insight on this blog.
It’s really, really sad if discrimination against women is taken less seriously than racial discrimination. But you may be right. I’m not so sure, though. We’re at the very beginning of this situation, and it could quickly get much worse if a woman’s group or a prominent female voice gets involved.
Good points on the Sterling and the Hawks. However, neither of those situations involved the owner directly affecting another person — it was about them making stupid, ignorant comments. In this case, Wilpon allegedly ACTED upon his non-pc feelings, and in fact may have broken the law by dismissing an employee.
As for my comparing the legal fees and settlement to the salaries of Murphy and Colon, gee whiz, man (or woman?) — exaggeration is part of my schtick. Being corrected on it takes out the fun.
This woman is saying that Jeff Wilpon said all of these things in front of many witnesses so let’s see if these individuals are willing to testify in court or submit written affidavits confirming her account. If they will testify or submit sworn affidavits at her first blush, independent of other facts, I would say her case is strong.
One thing’s for sure: the last person who will be crying if the Wilpons have to sell this team will be me; I will have a huge party if that day ever materializes because I can’t imagine the next owners could be any worse than Fred, Saul, and Jeff.
I wish.
I assume Jeff surrounds himself with cronies and yes men anyway. When asked to corroborate Castergine’s accounts, I can guarantee you they’ll be giving a lot of “I don’t remember” and “it was said in jest and she knew that cuz she chuckled” etc.
Without recordings and emails, there’s no way Castergine will be able to prove what happened. Plus the Wilpons will have the very best lawyers on their side. No jury will be convicting Jeff on legal grounds; it’d have to be some impassioned thing. I hope the loudest, angriest feminists out there jump on the Jeff bashing ASAP, organize some protests and CitiField boycotts, etc. I mean, that probably won’t actually sway jurors, but it’d still be great to give the Wilpons a black eye.
And yes, I know I’m guilty of assuming Jeff’s guilt, but I wouldn’t be doing so if these allegations were a surprise. They aren’t. They seem par for the course. There’s a common thread of pushiness, entitlement, combativeness and backwards thinking running through the Jeff Wilpon story for years now.
Maybe his punishment can include Tony Bernazard’s Shirtless Sensitivity Training.