Boston Globe Whiffs Again on Alex Verdugo’s Past

September 7, 2020

In his Sunday Baseball Notes column, Boston Globe reporter Peter Abraham had this to say in one of his bulleted Red Sox observations.

▪ You can, and should, hate the Betts trade. But Sox fans are clearly warming up to Alex Verdugo.

Verdugo had an .875 OPS through his first 38 games, but it’s much more than that. He plays with passion, and after a few fundamental flubs early in the season has become an excellent outfielder. His seven outfield assists lead the majors. There are 23 teams who don’t have as many.

Verdugo also runs out every ground ball regardless of the score and seems genuinely happy to be playing for the Red Sox. There’s a lot to like.

 

Except, of course, that 2015 business about Verdugo witnessing the assault of a teenage girl by two of his minor league teammates and doing nothing about it. [CORRECTION: It was two women who committed the assault.]

Yesterday’s column was at least the second time that Abraham has put on the pom poms for Verdugo. Here’s what the hardreading staff wrote back in February.

The story has also been all over Twitter this past week. But there was nothing in the stately local broadsheet until this story by Peter Abraham and Alex Speier ran in the Boston Sunday Globe (and was buried on the website).

To call that eyewash is an insult to saline solution everywhere.

 

Especially since it omitted some significant facts, as Jessica Quiroli – who has chronicled the incident in chilling detail on her blog All Heels on Deck – noted on Twitter at the time.

It’s curious that neither one of those pieces by Abraham disclosed John Henry’s dual ownership of the Boston GlobeSox. In fact, very few Globe pieces on the Red Sox include disclosure these days. Even the normally fastidious Dan Shaughnessy, while trashing Red Sox ownership in this piece just up on the web, has dropped disclosure.

And as we’ve previously stated, before you bother pelting us with tweets, a) No, everyone does not know that Henry owns them both, and b) Even if everyone did know, the disclosure should still be in there.

Yes – every single time.

Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Campaign Outsider

Boston Globe on Verdugo Days Late, Disclosure Short

February 16, 2020

The story of newly minted Red Sox outfielder Alex Verdugo’s involvement it the alleged sexual assault of a minor in 2015 has been out there for over a year, thanks to baseball writer Jessica Quiroli, who chronicled the incident in chilling detail on her blog All Heels on Deck.

Nut graf:

She was one of the 75% of runaways who are female. And, as runaways often do, she found support where she could. Maybe on that February night in Glendale, Arizona, a city nine miles outside of Phoenix, she felt safe when she agreed to hang out with two women, who were a few years older than her, whom she’d met through social media.

Maybe the prospect of hanging out with Los Angeles Dodgers players, in town for Spring Training, sounded like fun. What she ultimately experienced was a twisted night of physical, verbal and sexual abuse. And, once she made her story known, she was subjected to more trauma.

 

The story has also been all over Twitter this past week. But there was nothing in the stately local broadsheet until this story by Peter Abraham and Alex Speier ran in the Boston Sunday Globe (and was buried on the website).

Verdugo explains ’15 police investigation

FORT MYERS, Fla. — New Red Sox outfielder Alex Verdugo acknowledged his involvement in a 2015 incident in Arizona that led to police investigating the alleged sexual assault of a minor by another player.

No charges were ever filed, and, in response to a question from a Globe reporter on Saturday, Verdugo said he was “cleared of any wrongdoing” in the matter.

“With that being said, it was a terrible thing that happened. It was in my past,” Verdugo said. “It was something that I’ve grown from it; I’ve learned from it.”

 

To call that eyewash is an insult to saline solution everywhere.

In addition, a number of significant facts were conspicuously missing from the Globe story.

 

 

One other thing missing: Disclosure of John Henry’s dual ownership of the Boston GlobeSox.

And before you bother pelting me with tweets, a) no, everyone does not know that Henry owns ’em both, and b) even if everyone did know, the disclosure should still be in there.

Yes – every single time.

1 Comment | Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Campaign Outsider