One former ESPN employee, joyful at the great cleansing that is taking place today, said that many of the staff — from talent, to programming directors, to producers — live life on the road similar to that of the professional athletes they cover. In fact, there's a road code that many a Bristol swordsman abides by when gallivanting across the country. This individual, who started off giving us the definition of "road beef," (thanks for that!) went on to introduce to a couple more words familiar with many a Worldwide-leading employee:

Importing: "This is when you have a girl on the road but then fly her in to another destination. Women of this caliber may or may not be let out of hotel, either for fear of being outed or because they are not that attractive."

Covering Your Bases: "Many of the guys on the road would often import one girl, but then go out at night without her for the chance of an upgrade."

Fantastic.

Now, obviously today has caused a "major panic" over at Bristol headquarters according to those who work there or who know people who work there — especially with the many married male employees. Here's a typical email:

I've never had sex w/ anyone at ESPN....

But, uh, I just got to Bristol and between me and you, you've to got a lot of people sleeping with a rosary tonight.

But look at the upside:

And then there's this email, which is a little more typical(UPDATE):

I worked there for 11.5 years from 1985 to 1997...

That Lacey story seems pretty damn tame

Back when the company was much smaller there were regular parties that a lot of the company attended - needless to say there was a lot of fucking going on afterwards.

A lot of that culture remained moreso with the older employees that became executives...they were a scummy lot. smart, sure...talented, definitely....sleazy middle aged guys that felt they could proposition younger female employees with regularity - you bet.

yes, I still have friends there. the guys are by large all "locker room" humor guys, whether in bristol or on the road. I don't view inter-office relationships between people who don't fall under one another's command as a big deal and I don't think anyone else does either. we lived in the middle of connecticut for christ's sake, and trust me when I tell you, when we went out at night to bars in hartford it was slim pickings - the best options were always fellow espners.

What was disgusting were the executives though, even the ones I like and admire professionally. Hey, if a girl wants to fuck her boss, I'm not going to stop her. but when she is viewed in a seemingly preferential manner, then you start to get irritated. the sad part, even with the anonymity of the internet is that you'll never hear 1/10th of the stories. Especially with the fucking that occurs on the road with runners, stage managers, etc - the girls that aren't staff employees in any sense and are making shit money. the majority of the people that stay there more than 2 or 3 years stay there forever - they are the types that max contribute to their 401K, feel that working at ESPN is the coolest place in the world even after making shit money for a few years and working long hours doing work that a "nutless monkey could do".

Along with hiring lots of smart, dynamic personalities, and always a ton of cute girls in the last 10-15 years, they also hire straight up sports nerds who think nothing of working terrible hours and having no life. they can not get promoted for 7 or 8 years and are still happy being grunts.

fact is, working at espn is their life. they are away from family and friends constantly, they start their in their 20s and wake up at 30 realizing they gave the best years of their life to central connecticut. they have no girlfriend, travel all the time on weekends, and end up marrying a production assistant.

there are good, wholesome execs at espn that are surely embarrassed by this and would relish the opportunity to clean up the place. I worked in sportcenter, programming and remote production, a rarity. one area you need to dig into is remote production. you guys always focus on the studio side like it is the only element of production at espn (JED DRAKE). remote has always been responsible to as much and in the past, much more. before eoe, films, game shows, a crazy amount of studio shows, remote was responsible for everything on espn and espn2 but sportscenter.

the (JED DRAKE) guy that runs that dept is world class scumbag - fucking his secretary, production assistants, trying to fuck interns and having to fly across the atlantic to apologize to her parents after an incident
at the wimbledon...

other manager there are equally as bad - one had a fetish for blondes, another certain big time football producer openly hit on girls, another producer propositioned another producers wife and was threatened with a beating...it goes on and on and on... again, production assistants fucking other PAs, APs fucking PAs, producers fucking PAs that don't work under them - I have no problem with any of this, even if they happen to be cheating...

its the sexual harrassment that kills me...and not in a sense that the women are being mistreated because I think in almost every case, these girls are fucking the talent and fucking their bosses for the same reasons any other girl does at a company - she wants to, even if it has no bearing on her role at the company.

what is brutal are these execs that want to fuck anything that moves, then try to remain a respected authority figure and tell their staffs right from wrong, and make their employees feel like they might be getting the shaft for the fat pig that fucked the boss after the latest going away party

it is a weird, and in a cultural sense, very incestuous place! many have always maintained that if not in manhattan, if the place was at least in stamford it would be a lot more culturally normal

PS - I changed some dates, name, departments to protect myself

See? It's the location.

There seems to be no consistency to how the employee code of conduct is enforced over at ESPN. Can you bang an intern? Are you subject to harsher penalties if you're married? It's so murky.

Still awaiting comment on ESPN for that policy...

But, for now, ESPN, go in peace. I hope that 6 p.m. meeting went well. I think the one person who probably enjoyed this the most today (besides Nick Denton) is Sean Salisbury. He's somewhat vindicated.

****

Consider this your DUAN!

Thanks for your continued support of Deadspin. Barry will be here in a bit. Go Phillies.

Sleep tight, Bristol...

The story is a bit tough to follow but in summary, the woman in the above photo is a St. Louis bartender who, according to her, has been humpin' buddies with the former Cub/Diamondback for years when he's in town. She also claims that she defaced her back with a "Grace" tattoo to let any other partner she may have in the future who sees her from that particular vantage point that she is, in fact, permanent property of Mr. Grace.

Highly suspicious, yes, but HHR's correspondent went the extra country mile and tracked down Grace's agent, Barry Axelrod, who, miraculously, somewhat verified the story:

"Fellas: Just had a late lunch with Gracie and brought a print out of the narrative with me. I told him that he had been subject of an email chain and I was going to read it to him. As soon as I got to the part mentioning the (Bar name redacted), he just smiled and said "Oh, yeah. The tatoo" I didn't even get to the meat of it.

He asked me where this came from and I gave him the whole chain and all he wanted was for me to be sure to let you guys know that he does not recall asking her to marry him .. .. .. .. but upon further inquiry he admitted that he could have."

Mark Grace=Life Coach [HHR]

There are rules to observe when you become a Yankee wife and there is little tolerance for Derek Jeter's latest Hollywood nymphs. Minka Kelly you are not welcome in the Yankee Wives club. According to the NYP, flavor-of-the-minutes like Kelly "are often cautioned to keep their distance from the long-suffering wives. Kelly watches the games secluded in Jeter's private box."

But the gals love Kate Hudson. She's allowed to sit with them. Amber Sabathia gave her the stamp of a approval: "She's a great girl," Amber said. "She's super cool." And Laura Posada — the longest-suffering of the "long-suffering" wives — also says Penny Lane is welcome: "She doesn't act like a superstar. She's on the field, she's in the family room, she's really becoming part of the group. They're happy, and it shows in the way he's playing. I think it's great."

One e who never sat with the coffee klatch? Cynthia Rodriguez. Why is that not surprising.

Secrets Of The Yank Wives Club [NYP]

Keep in mind this is being reported by something called People.co.uk, which bears no connection to the American People Magazine that at least attempts to be taken seriously. But supposedly six Premier League stars all slept with the same groupie, and said groupie just tested positive for HIV.

She told the players, who are now awaiting their test results. Says a nebulous source:

All of them are beside themselves with worry. They are all only too aware of the scandal it will cause. None of them have let their families know yet because they don't want to worry them. It's like a ticking timebomb for them all and would almost certainly end their careers if they have contracted it."

The six players play for three different teams, and the woman isn't sure if she contracted the disease before or after (or during) sleeping with the players. Lots of unanswered questions here, but we'll be hearing more about this shortly, I'd imagine.

Six Premier League Stars Given HIV Alert By Same Girl [People.co.uk]

Yesterday, we brought you the story of an amorous married ballplayer who gave his digits to an unnamed female intern from a media outlet. This was all a very serious business, according to the Houston Chronicle's very serious Jose de Jesus Ortiz, because, as you know, married athletes who hand out their phone numbers to single ladies inevitably wind up with two bullets in their head. (Seriously. That's what he was implying. The headline: "McNair's death not a lesson to one idiot." Which is simply insane.)

Pearlman took his Rolodex for a spin and got a baseball source to spill. He writes:

Jesus was classy enough not to "out" the intern or the ballplayer-and I'll follow his lead. But, as with many things in life, there is a disconcerting aftermath. According to a baseball source, the ballplayer was a member of the Washington Nationals. Furthermore, because of the incident, the Nationals are now considering a permanent, all-encompassing ban of interns from the team's clubhouse.

Well, that last bit will never happen; if it did, among other things, MLB.com would never file another story from Nationals Park. And so, awesomely, the hapless Nationals once again find themselves at the heart of something stupid in baseball. They can't do anything right. Spell. Pitch. Hit. Score. Score runs. These are men who, as the saying goes, could fuck up a wet dream.

Photoshop by Moe Sussman

Foolish intern, meet slime ballplayer [JeffPearlman.com]
EARLIER: Oddly Enough, Married Athletes Are Still Foolin' Around

Ideal Houston Chronicle baseball writer Jose de Jesus Ortiz could not believe his eyes, ears, and other sensory organs when a female intern for a Houston media organization was asked out by a married baseball player to go to a club later that night. Ortiz hoped to stop speculation when he said the intern didn't work for the Chronicle and the player didn't play for the Astros. And it worked. End of blog post.

Whoops, no wait, there appear to be some more words. here. The female in question publicly blurted out her new found digits:

[T]he young lady, who has nearly 700 "friends" on Facebook, decided to post this message on her Facebook account for over four hours: "Was asked out by (team name and player name) last night and I have his cell phone number to prove it."

Not much to go on, but this we know: it was a guy. This is not a LESBIAN LOVE AFFAIR story. Regardless, please put on your thinking caps.

We also can presume that, while it wasn't an Astros player, it was someone on a team who played at Houston since McNair's death on July 4, since Ortiz's point was that these two people "didn't learn" from his death. That narrows it down to someone from the Pirates or the Nationals, which brings us to this conclusion: this woman has extremely low standards.

So I suppose if someone cared enough, they could filter out all those players and get a list of wedding banded hands. I am unsure how to rule Jose Tabata's marital status.

McNair's Death Not A Lesson To One Idiot [Houston Chronicle]

Most of last night's episode about the life of "Baseball Wives"—who may be true, but are not from Hollywood—could have easily been cut and pasted into a Lifetime Original. It was a perfectly non-confrontational look at the life of someone married to a professional athlete. There was talk of meet cutes, adorable proposal stories, cuddly kids, and rousing on-the-field successes. Plus, there was the tear-jerking dark times. Drugs. Kids with head diseases. They even discussed David Eckstein without using the word "gritty." Then things took an ugly turn, when some dude decided to spill the beans about players' "extra curricular" travel activities.

Nice job, narc. Not that Heidi Hamels or Jennie Daigle (neé Finch) have to worry about that. Even Laura Posada is the type of lady whose man always comes home on time. But when Derek Jeter is your husband's designated wingman, anything is possible.

The otherwise uninteresting transaction note in today's paper would have gone unnoticed by all but the most hardcore NL-only fantasy players, were it not for the pictures taken at an MMA event in Chicago on May 15. On that night, Marmol was not shy about his love for hand-to-hand combat sports, nor was he shy about the young lady who accompanied him to the fight. The unidentified gal was not named as his wife, his girlfriend, or some sort of really close family friend, but she did express a desire to not see his pretty face tampered with. However, the fact that she was drinking what looks like beer two weeks ago and does not appear to be hiding a pumpkin under her shirt leads one to believe that she is not the aforementioned wife about to give birth as early as today. Curious.

There isn't any other information online about the couple's status—separated, divorced, agreeing to disagree?—but he was not exactly hiding his night on the town with his lady traveler, since even the Sun-Times had a shot of them canoodling. Also, no cares enough about Carlos Marmol to know without fact checking that his wife is nine months pregnant.

Of course, there's always the chance that the wife doesn't even exist and he will simply make up any excuse possible to avoid watching a Pirates game.

Ted Lilly ejected from Cubs' dugout, takes argument to field [Chicago Sun-Times]
Carlos Marmol Photo Gallery [Chicago Sun-Times]
Carlos Marmol: Cub man, MMA fan [Cagewriter]
See also: Who do the Cubs Want to Buy the Cubs? The Boots Girls Know! [TheseBootsAreMadeForStalking]

We're not sure if this is from a regular writer on the site (doesn't appear to be) or a guest blog from a concerned reader, but "Natalia" doesn't waste anytime getting to the point:

"REALISM" is the word of the day. I have always secretly packed condoms in my husband's suitcase before he goes out of town. He's a professional athlete in the NBA, handsome, and completely normal. He says, "Sweetie, you don't need to do that," and I respond, "Just give them to the other players ... make sure they're safe." I understand that young guys (older ones too, LOL) can't always think clearly when their blood is racing from their brain to other places. I don't condone cheating and I make that very clear! Anyway, not having a condom isn't going to stop most men, they'll just have unprotected sex.

Of course, we married women want to believe that our husbands only have eyes for us. Don't get me wrong, your guy may be one in a ton of men that only sleeps with his wife. Congratulations, and continue to enjoy your happy monogamist life together.

So what do you think? Is it legit? Even if it isn't, does that sound like a realistic portrayal of a street-wise sports wife who is smart enough to protect her own interests? These ladies aren't stupid. They know what goes on out there on those long West Coast road swings while they're back home making the kids' lunches. So you can shut your eyes and live in a fantasy world or you can take care of yourself. And maybe the mailman, too.

Yes, I Pack My Hubby Condoms [MomLogic]
[Pic]

PLAYBOY: Manny Ramirez made himself such a distraction for the Red Sox last year that they traded him to L.A., where he led the Dodgers to the playoffs. Why did he want out of Boston?

BORAS: Manny enjoyed his Red Sox teammates and loved the organization, but he did not enjoy living in Boston. It wore him out. He wasn't comfortable. It wasn't like Cleveland.

Finally, a little love for Cleveland. They needed it.

PLAYBOY: He wanted out because Boston isn't like Cleveland?

BORAS: [Nodding] For Manny, environment is important. He had liked living in the Cleveland suburbs. I said, "Manny, I want you to play in L.A. They've got some really good young hitters, but they need a slugger, and Pasadena's a lot like those Cleveland suburbs." He had been to L.A. only three times in his life, but once we got him there he said, "This is the spot for me."

Who knew Scott Boras was a master realtor? It must take some real skill to convince your insane star client that southern California could be every bit as comfortable as suburban Cleveland. Regardless, I think I'd still take Shaker Heights over Pasadena.

Eventually the conversation steered toward the topic of sex, as it always does with Scott Boras.

PLAYBOY: Groupies used to be called Baseball Annies. What's the
nastiest term you've heard for them?

BORAS: Road beef.

And with that, AJ Daulerio got his wings.

Keep an eye out for the full interview in the upcoming issue of Playboy, on stands later this month. Perhaps A-Rod will grace the cover.

This year there were plenty of ladies who abused their side-project privilege and became more well known then the athletes who patronize their company would probably like. This is the harsh reality of the internet age: if you want to keep a lady on the side, you better make sure she doesn't have a Facebook account or have some career ambitions beyond the bedroom.

• Jose Reyes probably wishes he never met Bentley Mathews.

• Alfonso Soriano also made a friend

• Alicia Marie was accused of being one of A-Rod's many muscular ladies, but quickly set the record straight.

• Roger Clemens just couldn't escape all the women willing to talk about him

• Antonio Pierce's wife was not happy with this video

• Matt Leinart beer-bonged his way to infamy , then became a Jeopardy! question.

• The ladies discussed this phenomenon

Now, of course, these photos don't show anything that revealing other than a few shots of Soriano and Wiesen nuzzling together. However, according to the Cubs' 2008 media guide, Soriano is married to a woman named Angelica, mother of his four children.

But this isn't about Fonzie's (supposed) infidelity — its' about Keri and her willingness to jeopardize Mr. Soriano's marriage in an effort to increase her own Facebook visibility and, perhaps, her dream of becoming the next Sylvia Plath.

Wiesen lists her current employer as Hugo's Frog Bar and Fish House, where she's a hostess and Oak Bank, where she's a "personal banker."

Keri is also an Obama supporter, "FUN", a rap fan (AKON!!!) and lists her personal favorite quotation as "YOU SURE YOU WANT ME? because I'M AN EXPENSIVE BITCH", which I believe is from Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther.

The sad part is, Wiesen will probably get better playoff seats this year than Leo Hildebrand.