2 years later and I can finally talk about this ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/o6jFqMzY05

— Trevor Bauer (トレバー・バウアー) (@BauerOutage) October 2, 2023

This story broke a couple of days ago, and readers have been chiding me for not posting on it. I must admit, I was stalling, because it is a total mess that will take two major posts to unravel, and to cap it all off, my baseball posts don’t attract enough interest to meet the time/reward minimum. Nevertheless, this disaster raises major ethical issues. Ignore at your peril.

1. Background: Trevor Bauer: I have written a great deal about Trevor Bower, a talented Major League starting pitcher who, somewhat like Curt Schilling (recently discussed here), had a well-earned reputation for being an eccentric, and kind of a jerk. Bauer was also Donald Trump-like on social media, with similar, if more narrowly focused, results.

He once knocked himself out of a crucial post-season start by cutting a pitching hand finger playing with a drone (he loves drones). In 2018, while pitching for the Cleveland Indians, Bauer appeared to carve “BD 911” into the pitching mound during a game. That has been Truther short-hand for “Bush Did” the 9-11 bombings, and Bauer was widely criticized for the stunt. He then angrily denied that the message meant anything political, but never explained what it did mean. This also did not make him popular in a sport that is branded as patriotic and embodying core American values. In 2019, a sportswriter started claiming that Bauer’s tweets made him a “problem” because he had a contentious exchange with a female Twitter user. He was accused of harassment. It wasn’t harassment, but a pattern was set that eventually bit Bauer, hard.

In 2019, after allowing seven runs, Bauer threw a baseball over the centerfield wall after seeing his manager Terry Francona come out of the dugout to remove him from the game. Bauer apologized profusely, but it was the final straw for Francona, and the Indians traded him. Bauer was among the most vocal critics (and one of the few player critics) of the Houston Astros’ cheating scandal (see here), and cheating in baseball generally. This is also not the way to be popular in the clubhouse. In 2021, MLB announced that umpires would be checking the balls more carefully and regularly to ensure that the rule against doctoring pitches wasn’t being violated. The first pitcher to have his thrown baseballs collected for inspection based on suspicion of doctoring was…Trevor Bauer, Anti-Cheating Crusader. Bauer reacted sarcastically to the report on his Twitter account, and noted that many baseballs were being collected from games across baseball, not only from him. I wrote that this was an ethics red flag for me, as was his reaction when baseball announced the new policy, saying that there would be no way to determine who doctored the balls.

Luckily for Bauer, the SOB can really pitch. In the shortened season of 2020, Bauer won the National League Cy Young Award as one of the two best pitchers the Major Leagues. The King’s Pass reigns supreme in baseball (as in other sports): if a player is good enough, he can get away with almost anything. Almost. The Dodger signed Bauer to a rich, three year contract.

2. The Scandal. Bauer had a much larger scandal coming. A restraining order was taken out against him in late June of 2021 by a former sex partner. The woman claimed she had what started as a consensual relationship involving rough sex with the pitcher, but in a 67-page document, alleged that Bauer assaulted her on two different occasions, punching her in the face, vagina, and buttocks, sticking his fingers down her throat, and strangling her to the point where she lost consciousness twice, an experience she said she did not consent to. After the second choking episode, the woman claimed she awoke to find Bauer punching her in the head and face, inflicting serious injuries. She contacted police, and an investigation of Bauer by the Pasadena, California police department began.

Baseball, which had made the NFL and the NBA look bad (they are bad) by cracking down on domestic abuse by players, placed Bauer on indefinite “administrative leave” although her allegations were unsubstantiated. At the time, I wrote,

Since the MLB policy appears to be based on “believe all women” and a “preponderance of the evidence” standard rather than “beyond a reasonable doubt,” I find it ethically troubling. (It resembles the way the Obama and Biden administrations want campus sexual abuse matters to be handled.) If, and I think this is doubtful, Bauer escapes charges and is still suspended, he is an excellent bet to challenge MLB’s “guilty until proven innocent” approach in the courts. Pains-in-the-necks have their uses.

[Rueful observation: I wish I was as smart every day as I was that day. On the other hand, literally no one else was making a similar observation. Even if I’m that smart only occasionally, Ethics Alarms should have a larger audience.]

Bauer didn’t pitch again that season, and in May of 2022, Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred announced that Bauer had received a 324-games suspension, two full seasons’ worth, effective immediately. During his earlier suspension, technically “administrative leave,” Bauer received his full salary of many millions, but the new suspension was punishment, and meant that Bauer would lose much more money going forward. Typically, he tweeted this defiant response:

“In the strongest possible terms, I deny committing any violation of the league’s domestic violence & sexual assault policy. I am appealing this action and expect to prevail. As we have throughout this process, my representatives & I respect the confidentiality of the proceedings.”

MLB took the extreme action despite the fact that a Los Angeles Superior Court judge had denied Bauer’s accuser’s request for a permanent restraining order, and the Los Angeles District Attorney’s office announced that criminal charges would not be brought against the pitcher, saying that “After a thorough review of the available evidence, including the civil restraining order proceedings, witness statements and the physical evidence, the People are unable to prove the relevant charges beyond a reasonable doubt.” But a second sex partner of Bauer’s also claimed that he abused her, then there was a third. Their claims were also unproven.

MLB has suspended and even banned players for alleged misconduct that was not proven in court, as in the famous case of the eight banned players in 1919 Black Sox scandal. Still I wondered at the time if Bauer’s reputation as a vocal critic of baseball management and his pariah status among players was why this draconian measure was taken against him. “It looks like the opposite of The King’s Pass, “ I wrote, “like “The Asshole’s Handicap.”

In January of this year, an independent arbitrator retained by both MLB and the MLB Players’ Association, after reviewing findings and testimony, ruled that Bauer’s suspension should be reduced to 194 games, 144 of which were already served during the grievance process. The arbitrator also gave Bauer credit for the time he served on administrative leave, leaving Bauer free to play baseball again. Never mind: “believing all woman,” the Dodgers released him, even though it left them responsible for $22.5 million, his 2023 salary. I wrote, “Bauer is healthy and can presumably still pitch; moreover, he has maintained his innocence of the domestic abuse charges throughout his ordeal. He has also served his punishment, though for what is unclear. He is being cut by the Dodgers because his character is in question.”

Ultimately nobody signed Bauer, branded a bad guy and a domestic abuser despite his denials, even though any team could do so for the minimum salary with the Dodgers paying the rest. In the end, the pitcher ended up plying his trade for the 2023 season in Japan.

3. The new revelations. This week, Bauer posted a video [above] to Twitter/X after a two-year legally-imposed muzzle on him. Bauer finally gave his side of the story, complete with screenshots of his accuser’s own words and texts. He displayed and read texts written by his accuser, finally identified as Lindsey Hill,to a friends before she even met Bauer.

“‘Next victim. Star pitcher for the Dodgers. What should I steal?”she texted. “Take his money,” the friend replied. “I’m going to his house Wednesday,” Hill wrote. “I already have my hooks in — you know how I roll.” After the hook-up, and being told by Hill that Bauer was worth “$51 mil,” her friends urged her, “Bitch, you better secure the bag!” “Need Daddy to choke me out,” Hill wrote. “Being an absolute whore to try to get in on his $51 million.”

After Hill accused Bauer of sexually assaulting her, Hill and her legal team tried repeatedly “to come to a financial settlement,” as in “to shake Bauer down for lots of money.” Bauer refused. Hill’s restraining order against Bauer was denied because a judge found her claims to be “materially misleading,” yet Hill continued to demand money through her lawyers. (“Nice career you have here, kid. A shame if anything was to happen to it…”)

In August of 2021, Lindsey Hill’s claims were heard in court, but “critical information was deliberately and unlawfully concealed from me and my legal team,” Bauer explains on the Twitter/X post. “Information like this video, which was taken by Lindsey Hill herself the morning after she claimed she was brutally attacked, emotionally traumatized, and desperate to get away from me.”

“And now we have the metadata, so there can be no dispute, ” Bauer says. “It was taken mere minutes before she left my house on the morning of May 16, 2021, without my knowledge or consent, of course. In it, you can see her lying in bed next to me while I’m sleeping, smirking at the camera without a care in the world or any marks on her face.”

“The fact is I was never arrested,” said Bauer. “I was never charged with a crime, and I won the only legal proceeding that took place without my side of the story even being heard. And most importantly, as I’ve said from day one, I never sexually assaulted Lindsey Hill or anyone else for that matter. So I sued her, which prompted her to counter-sue me.” The lawsuit was “the only way for me to obtain critical information to clear my name,” Bauer said.

Now both lawsuits have been dropped. Bauer says. But there is also this…

It appears her lawyers had the evidence the entire time. Speaking specifically about the video of her laying in bed next to me with no marks on her face the morning after she claims I brutally attacked her, an email containing that video was sent to her attorney Bryan Freedman before the DVRO hearing in 2021 and it was never turned over to us. Perhaps that’s why he insisted on adding his name to the released parties section in the settlement agreement. There was also a 12 day span of texts between Lindsey and two of her closest friends immediately following the incident that were deleted. We asked for them in discovery for the dvro, they weren’t turned over. We also argued that they must be turned over in the dvro proceeding. They were not. Lindsey hills other law firm, Meyer Olson Lowy and Meyers LLP, who co represented her through that court process, had them the whole time.

Bauer says, “Now, over the last two years, I’ve been forced to defend my integrity and my reputation in a very public setting.But hopefully, this is the last time I have to do so as I prefer to just remain focused on doing my job winning baseball games and entertaining fans around the world. So today, I’m happy to be moving on with my life.”

In Part 2, I’ll be sorting through the villains, victims and wreckage.