Former Mets Senior VP/Ticket Sales & Service Leigh Castergine yesterday sued the club in N.Y. district court, alleging the Mets discriminated against her due to her pregnancy out of wedlock. Castergine specifically alleges Mets COO Jeff Wilpon over many months belittled and humiliated her, often in the presence of other senior team execs. According to Castergine’s lawsuit, Wilpon said, “I am as morally opposed to putting an e-cigarette sign in my ballpark as I am to Leigh having this baby without being married.” The lawsuit also alleges Wilpon told Castergine to tell her boyfriend she would “make more money and get a bigger bonus” if they married. Castergine seeks monetary damages for discrimination on the basis of sex, pregnancy and marital status. The complaint represents the latest saga for the club that has spent much of the last half decade embroiled in several troubling issues, including repeated questions of its own financial solvency. Castergine worked for the Mets for four years before being let go last month. She previously worked for the Sixers, Flyers, Magic and Bruins, and was on maternity leave between March and June of this year. The bulk of Castergine’s allegations against the club relates to last fall and winter after she revealed her pregnancy. The Mets in a statement said the suit is “without merit” and defended its “strong policies against any and all forms of discrimination.” MLB officials for now are considering the issue a team matter.
AROUND THE HORN WITH OTHER COVERAGE: In New Jersey, Bob Klapisch writes fans who are hoping Wilpon “has had his Donald Sterling moment will be disappointed to learn there’s virtually no chance” MLB Commissioner Bud Selig “will get involved with the latest fiasco at Citi Field.” It appears Selig “will be watching from the sideline.” In all likelihood, Wilpon and Castergine will “settle out of court and that’ll be the last we hear of it.” But if that happens, it “would not remove the stain of Wilpon’s actions.” Klapisch: “I believe what Castergine alleges in the lawsuit. Every single word” (Bergen RECORD, 9/11). YAHOO SPORTS’ Jeff Passan wrote if these “disgusting, abhorrent acts of misogyny receive even one iota of confirmation,” one of Selig's “final acts as commissioner must be to rid Major League Baseball of this nepotistic fraud once and for all.” MLB “needs to tell the world it is a safe place for women.” Passan notes Wilpon sits on the BOD for MLB Enterprises and MLB Network, and wrote, "It's one thing to have a reprobate in ownership; it's another to give him a position of power in rooms where billion-dollar deals are negotiated" (SPORTS.YAHOO.com, 9/10). In N.Y., Selim Algar writes of Wilpon, “Empty seats he was used to -- but a woman team executive having a baby out of wedlock was too much” (N.Y. POST, 9/11).
MORE FROM THE SUIT: Castergine's lawsuit also takes several shots at the Mets’ player-development and ticket-pricing policies. Her job was likened to selling “tickets to a funeral,” given the Mets’ extended run of losing seasons and public relations issues amid the involvement of Mets ownership in the Bernie Madoff scandal. She also said she inherited a highly problematic situation when taking the job in ’10. The lawsuit states the Mets' front office "inflated ticket prices (with the ’09 opening of Citi Field) to keep pace” with the Yankees, and that ownership "insisted on the markup despite being aware that higher prices might cause fans to avoid coming to games” (Fisher).
