A remark made by ESPN baseball insider on the March 3 edition of the ESPN Daily podcast stirred up some controversy among Major League Baseball team owners and executives, who felt that the comment showed bias in favor of the players union and a lack of objectivity in reporting the MLB lockout.
Passan explained to ESPN Daily host Pablo Torre that he looked at the owners’ final offer after a long negotiating session at MLB’s imposed Feb. 28 deadline that ended past 2:30 a.m. and immediately asked players what they thought of it.
“I looked at the offer the next morning,” said Passan, “and I texted a few players, and I texted a few agents, and I said to all of them, ‘Are you really going to take this shit sandwich?'”
New York Daily News baseball columnist Bill Madden was among those who reported that MLB executives and team owners were “outraged” over Passan — who works for one of baseball’s TV partners in ESPN — encouraging players and agents to turn down the league’s final offer.
On Monday, Passan apologized in a statement ESPN issued to several media outlets, including the New York Post and Front Office Sports, and clarified what he intended to say on the ESPN Daily podcast.
“On a podcast recently, I took the phrasing of a source and mistakenly did not make clear they were his words, not mine,” said Passan. “ESPN and fans rightfully expect me to be objective, and my record shows I’m extremely committed to representing all sides of a story. In this instance, I fell short of that standard.”
According to both the Post‘s Ryan Glasspiegel and Front Office Sports’ Michael McCarthy, ESPN said that it addressed the matter with Passan and was satisfied with his statement.
“We’ve addressed the situation with Jeff directly and as you can see from his statement, he understands his mistake,” said an ESPN spokesperson (via the Post). “We fully trust that going forward he will cover this important and sensitive topic in a fair manner.”
McCarthy went on to report that he’d been told ESPN did not penalize Passan with a suspension or fine for the remark.
From that, the reasonable conclusion to draw is that the network accepted Passan’s explanation that he mispoke and intended to quote a source with the “shit sandwich” remark, rather than make it sound as if that was his interpretation of the MLB owners’ final offer in the most recent negotiations with players.
