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Paul Dolan on Mickey Callaway: Cleveland Failed to Create an Inclusive Culture
March 10, 2021
Cleveland chairman Paul Dolan told employees in an email last Friday the MLB club did not provide the "culture and processes necessary" for staffers to report concerns over alleged lewd behavior by former pitching coach Mickey Callaway.
According to The Athletic's Ken Rosenthal, Britt Ghiroli and Katie Strang, who obtained the email, Dolan acknowledged the team's shortcomings and sought to reassure employees moving forward.
"This is deeply troubling to me," Dolan wrote. "It is clear that we have not done enough to build the inclusive culture we strive to create."
Callaway is currently suspended from his role as pitching coach of the Los Angeles Angels while Major League Baseball investigates his past behavior.
Ghiroli and Strang first reported on Callaway's conduct as a member of Cleveland's staff from 2013-2017 in early February, revealing accusations by five women that the former New York Mets manager "aggressively pursuing" them, with the coach sending "inappropriate photos," asking for nude pictures in return and carrying on an affair with a married woman.
A follow-up report from The Athletic noted an additional 22 people who interacted with Callaway in Cleveland confirmed the perverseness of the coach's sexual indiscretions in the workplace with one employee calling it the "worst-kept secret in the organization."
In his email on Friday, Dolan attempted to explain the team's handling of allegations from an angry husband that Callaway sent his wife "pornographic material"—a revelation that confirmed team president Chris Antonetti knew of complaints against Callaway despite his previous denials.
"We have a consistent process for intaking, investigating, evaluating and ultimately addressing reports that we receive about any Club employee, which we followed in this instance," Dolan wrote. "While we believed Mickey Callaway’s actions we reviewed involved poor judgment, our leaders in Legal, Human Resources, and Baseball Operations made a mutual determination that this was not a personnel matter but instead a consensual extramarital relationship."
The woman told The Athletic no one from the organization reached out to her to "confirm or deny the nature of the relationship."
"He pursued me on the job, he texted me on the job, and they don't know any of that because they didn't ask," the woman said.
Dolan said the team will not comment publicly on Callaway's alleged behavior until the completion of MLB's investigation.