WFAN reacts to sexual harassment accusations toward former Mets manager Mickey Callaway

Former Mets manager Mickey Callaway has been accused of sexual harassment by five women. How did WFAN Sports Radio respond?

Brittany Ghiroli and Katie Strang of The Athletic reported Monday night that five women in sports media — all anonymous — are accusing former Mets manager and current Angels pitching coach Mickey Callaway of past lewd behavior. This behavior allegedly encompassed acts of Callaway sending inappropriate pictures, requesting naked pictures, asking a female reporter to get drunk with him, and thrusting his crotch into the face of one female reporter.

Mets owner Steve Cohen and president Sandy Alderson responded to the allegations.

“The conduct reported in The Athletic story [Monday] is completely unacceptable and would never be tolerated under my ownership,” said Cohen.

“I was appalled by the actions reported [Monday] of former manager Mickey Callaway,” Alderson said. “I was unaware of the conduct described in the story at the time of Mickey’s hire or at any time during my tenure as General Manager. We have already begun a review of our hiring processes to ensure our vetting of new employees is more thorough and comprehensive.”

Despite the fact that Callaway is no longer with the Mets organization — he was fired in October 2019 after two seasons as manager — WFAN Sports Radio in New York had much to say on the matter.

“Boomer and Gio” producer Al Dukes provided his take on the criticism of Alderson, who hired Callaway back in October 2017 when he was general manager, in spite of him not being the one accused of this inappropriate behavior.

You cannot blame Sandy Alderson for something Mickey Callaway did, and then have Lawrence Taylor on as a guest

— Al Hughes Dukes (@Alsboringtweets) February 2, 2021

Shortly thereafter, WFAN midday host Maggie Gray gave her thoughts on the story to commence her “Moose and Maggie” show.

“Well, the Mets find themselves in another situation here because it turns out that Mickey Callaway wasn’t just a terrible manager, turns out Mickey Callaway was a pretty terrible person…basically using his power to try and manipulate these reporters and putting these women on the defensive, making them uncomfortable at work and making it harder — maybe impossible — for them to do their jobs.

“This should be a huge problem for Mickey Callaway,” she said. “He’s shown that he can’t handle this kind of power. That he really can’t handle this job. This shows a pattern of behavior where Mickey Callaway has been actively working to make women feel marginalized.”

Gray then went into the issues in and around the hiring process within Major League Baseball, given this is now the second time in less than a month that either a former or then-current Mets employee was accused of sexual harassment. The Mets fired then-general manager Jared Porter in January the morning after an ESPN story from Mina Kimes and Jeff Passan broke revealing his past inappropriate behavior towards a foreign female reporter.

As of Tuesday morning, the Angels still employ Callaway but are undergoing an investigation with MLB on the matter.

There’s also the big story of how the Mets knew of an incident regarding Callaway’s past when he was still with the team. However, it’s unclear if any sort of discipline was ever enforced.

Gray additionally touched on this.

“If the Mets knew that Mickey had something in his past, they were made aware of it while he was the manager of the Mets, can they say to the Angels [who hired him as pitching coach shortly after the Mets fired him], ‘Hey, we had an issue, I’m just letting you know that we had an issue.’ Now legally, I’m not sure if you can’t say something like that, but that would also be another flaw [in the hiring process]…if they knew more, which they did, can they give the Angels a heads up so that he’s not being hired over and over and over again?” she said.

This is similar to Evan Roberts — co-host of WFAN’s “Carton and Roberts” — introducing the idea of ESPN’s Passan not saying something to the Mets when the Amazins were considering Porter for the general manager job despite the fact he was apparently working on the story exposing Porter’s past behavior.

Passan then defended himself when appearing on ESPN Radio’s “The Michael Kay Show.” It was additionally revealed Passan had only recently begun working on the Porter story, contrary to the aforementioned belief.

Jeff Passan is really, really pissed at the "irresponsible" WFAN hosts who suggested that ESPN sat on the Jared Porter story for four years.

[@TMKSESPN] pic.twitter.com/bhsWvrUGbl

— Funhouse (@BackAftaThis) January 20, 2021

Speaking of Roberts, the drivetime host himself additionally spoke on the Callaway situation.

“The first thing that jumped out at me when I was reading this incredible article — because it goes into detail, it’s got text messages, it’s very very specific — one of the things that jumped out at me, besides the fact that Mickey Callaway is a creep, was this quote early on in the story that said, ‘It was the worst-kept secret in sports,'” Roberts said. “Because if this was something everybody knew about…my question would be not only ‘why did Mickey Callaway get the Angels pitching coach job?’ I’d go with ‘why did Mickey Callaway get the Mets manager job? Why did Mickey Callaway get to keep the Mets manager job when there was an internal investigation 10 months into his tenure?”

More information regarding Callaway’s future with the Angels should be revealed in the coming days.