I’m not going to go too deep into this here. I’m already sick of this nonsense that Fred Wilpon and The Golden Sperm put this franchise through on a day in/day out basis. But Jeffy is being sued for sexual discrimination, in the latest embarrassing moment for a franchise that seems to be full of them.
The first woman senior vice president in the team’s 52-year history claims in a federal lawsuit filed in Brooklyn Wednesday that Wilpon, the struggling team’s chief operating officer, canned her from her post heading ticket sales last month because he was “morally opposed” to her being pregnant and unmarried.
University of Pennsylvania grad Leigh Castergine, says in the suit, that Wilpon “frequently humiliated [her] in front of others by, among other things, pretending to see if she had an engagement ring on her finger.”
The suit claims Wilpon even stated “in a meeting of the team’s all-male senior executives that he is ‘morally opposed’ to Castergine ‘having this baby without being married.'”
“Wilpon told her that when she gets a ring she will make more money and get a bigger bonus,” the filing claims.
Disclaimer: Everybody deserves due process. I hope Jeff Wilpon gets due process, because that means that there will be a process … rather than a payoff to keep this quiet. No … we don’t know everything, and as much as we want to say that we know for sure that Castergine is a complete angel and Jeffy is a complete moron, we truly don’t know. But … c’mon. We know that Jeffy is a complete moron, and any skeleton that Jeffy’s legal team (paid for by daddy’s dime like everything else) drag out of Castergine’s closet isn’t going to change that. We do know that Castergine was good at her job. From the lawsuit:
“She built a computerized Customer Relationship Management system to track data about ticket purchases. Prior to Castergine’s arrival, the Mets collected data on index cards.”
We also know that Jeff Wilpon is not good at his job. He meddles in baseball affairs, with final say on everything from player transactions to which good luck charms go in the clubhouse. He has ruined every interpersonal relationship he’s ever been in, blowing up a long standing partnership with the Norfolk Tides to smithereens and not endearing himself to the folks in Buffalo as well. Basically, Jeffy is a no-talent, entitled, spoiled, star chaser who has been handed everything he has in this life, thanks to the family he was born into.
So you tell me, on the basis of that alone … who do you think is right?
Maybe I’m wrong, but I tend not to give Jeff Wilpon the benefit of the doubt on this after years of incompetence. It’s the same with the team that he has ruined. The Mets are still 5.5 games back after sweeping the Philadelphia 76ers of baseball on the strength of Rafael Montero’s first MLB victory. Is it exciting to be able to play a somewhat meaningful game in September? Sure. Am I going to give the Mets the benefit of the doubt after multiple teases not only this season but the last six seasons? No. I’m sure that makes me a curmudgeon and somebody who doesn’t believe in puppies and rainbows and Justin Bieber. Fine. But I’m not having this team break my heart this year because they swept the Colorado Rockies. And that’s how I feel about Jeff Wilpon. He can get his due process in a court of law. I welcome it. He doesn’t get one from me. He’s a moron.
(There’s a jury I won’t be picked for.)
In closing, I ask this of you: Read the lawsuit. Read how Wilpon constantly harassed Castergine about being an unwed mother. And tell me how that discrimination (if true, of course) is any different from what John Rocker said many years ago. One may have had more venom, and was more general. But discrimination comes in many wardrobes and personalities.