Julio Mateo under questioning for assault
Dave · May 5, 2007 at 11:54 am · Filed Under Mariners
Details are vague right now, but this is what we know – Julio Mateo has been accused of assault by a woman from an incident last night at the team hotel. He’s turned himself in and is cooperating with authorities. It is very unlikely he’ll be with the team at Yankee Stadium this afternoon.
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Holy crap. So would that mean the pen is short a man today? I reralize, in the Grand Scheme that may not be the first concern, but for now I’ll stick with what I can wrap my head around.
In the grand scheme of baseball (not things), are the M’s likely to jettison Mateo for PR reasons?
And he was one of the few fresh arms in the pen. Of course there’s more than a few people around here who will think not having Mateo available for Hargrove to send in “to get a ground out” with men on base is a good thing. But limiting Hargrove’s options — even if he frequently chooses the wrong one — isn’t really a net positive for the team.
Baker blogs about this. No real added details, but he may put more up later.
Damn, that’s not good. But am I going to hell for immediately being glad that this involves Mateo, and not one of our good players?
Man, this team is like some kind of rollercoster / soap opera this year.
I think it’s a little early to be making any predictions about jettisoning players for their activities — we don’t know if Mateo is going to charged, and if so with what. The team has looked past drunk driving (Sexson, Carlos Guillen — though that was one of that factors that got him traded eventually), marital indiscretions, horseplay that resulted in injuries blamed on luggage, and who knows what all.
Of course, if they wanted to get rid of Mateo anyway this certainly gives them an excuse, but they’ll end up getting nothing for him (once again, see Carlos). And then you to find someone to replace him, too.
Finding somebody to replace him is no big deal. See Green, Sean or Woods, Jake
Finally, an excuse to release Julio Mateo.
What an idiot.
5 – Mateo could win the Nobel Peace Prize and we’d still get nothing for him.
While I have no love for Julio Mateo the pitcher, it’s important to note that we don’t even know that he’s been arrested at this point in time. Innocent until proven guilty and all that – let’s lay off the rushing to conclusions.
8. I agree. Let’s not forget the totally inane Kobe “rape” saga.
8–I dunno; since we’re not on his jury, the innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt standard doesn’t apply. Moreover, the outcome of a trial appears to only have a limited relationship to whether someone actually committed a crime or not.
All that being said, I agree that we really have no idea about the Mateo situation, or his innocence or guilt. But I really think Kobe was guilty.
Kobe wasn’t guilty. Trust me, you have to know something about the way the justice system “works” up here in the mountains . . . from this distance, it was pretty clearly a railroad job. I doubt that’s the case with Mateo, but all we have is a complaint; this could be a great many things besides an actual criminal act on his part, and we need to let things sort themselves out. The fact that none of us will be sitting on his jury doesn’t relieve us of the responsibility not to rush to judgment.
And as much as I’d like to see Mateo replaced by someone better, this ain’t the way I’d want that to happen.
13–I don’t know anything about the justice system in Colorado, but I do remember the unspeakably sleazy tactics used by Kobe’s defense team. For example, Kobe’s lawyer repeatedly spoke the accuser’s name in open court, despite an order not to. (I think they might have been sanctioned for it, too.) Those tactics ultimately intimidated the accuser into refusing to participate in the case, and the charges were dropped.
Unspeakably sleazy? No, that would be the police and the justice system. Yeah, Kobe’s attorney pushed it, but nowhere near the way the other side did. In any case, the accuser didn’t drop the case because of defense tactics, she dropped it because pretty darn near every part of her story had been called into question, because the semen wasn’t Kobe’s, because, because, because . . .
If you have any real interest, I can probably dig up the analyses of the case written at the time by legal types down in Denver; even for those of us who really dislike Kobe, they made it very clear that he was getting the shaft on this one.
If you want a railroad job that isn’t as potentially screwed up as Kobe, look at the Duke Lacrosse team. Despite completely unreliable witness testimony and contradictory physical evidence (and an ironclad alibi, in one case) those three kids were indicted anyway.
The lesson for both cases? Don’t ever put yourself in anything remotely resembling a situation where you can get accused.
15–Repeatedly publicly stating an alleged rape victim’s name, in violation of a rape shield law, is far beyond “pushing it,” and gets into the realm of really vile. That kind of attack is designed to humiliate women who’ve already been sexually assaulted into not helping to put the attacker away. Maybe the prosecution was just as bad, I don’t know and I’ll take your word for it, but it doesn’t begin to excuse the defense’s actions.
And I agree that the Lacrosse prosecution was a complete railroad job.
Uh, setting aside dismissed cases from past years involvng players in completely different sports that have never played for a Seattle team…
New details on Mateo:
Are “wives” already traveling with the team? I thought they usually waited until the second big road trip of the year, when the kids are out of school…
Yeah, the spring road trips are strictly for the floozies, aren’t they?
It sounds as if Julio has some questions to answer.
Well now I have a new more appropriate reason for not liking him.
So, is it better or worse that it’s his wife, rather than his mistress? I’m going with worse.
Wife, mistress, what’t the difference? Assaulting someone who isn’t larger and meaner than you are is inexcusable regardless. The only positive to it being the wife, as far as I can see, is that it’s less likely to be swept under the rug and she’s in a better legal position to take him to the cleaners financially (you have divorce with cause — assuming she does that — rather than just a civil suit).
Any idea why Mateo was optioned instead of placed on the restricted list?
I mean, I know you don’t get paid on the restricted list, but it doesn’t seem fair to the team that we should have to use an option year when he’s gone on personal business, plus the restricted list doesn’t count against the 40 man.
All the info I’ve seen on the news wires says that Mateo has NOT yet turned himself in.
Apparently AP is well behind the slow curve:
This JUST moved on the wire.
News reports say he has been optioned to AAA Tacoma by the Mariners and his replacement will be named shortly.
Reed was pulled from the game in Tacoma, in the 8th but I have a feeling that had more to do with the blowout and he being semi-injured earlier in the game.
What are the chances they simply activate Felix at this time?
Although I have disliked Mateo for several years, being so improperly used for the type of pitcher he is, he wears an M’s jersey…
This guy represents us in every respect.
I’m guessing most of you have girlfriends or wives, and we all can get frustrated. But my God, to raise your hand in anger?
Turn off your competitive instincts…
This guy, regardless of where he will pitch, will consistently be heckled and razzed for being a woman/wife abuser.
All of our fan sentiment aside, what do you guys feel that the other 24 guys in the locker room think of Julio right now?
=/
28: Felix has been pushed back another week to May 15, according to Baker.
I’d prefer to know all the facts.
But if they’re as they first appear to be…ugh.
Baker has an update
I don’t have a girlfriend or wife, but I feel like I should care for some reason… hmm. I’ll let you know when I think of what it might be.
Seriously, though, whenever I hear about players being axed for some off-the-field reason, I’m not sure what I think about it. Granted sports figures and actors can affect their earning potential with personal behavior. But there’s something sketchy about actually getting fired from your job when you do something your employers don’t approve of outside of work. Of course, it’s easier to sympathize when the off-field behavior isn’t, say, punching out your spouse.
As to getting fired based on fan heckling or locker room disapproval, let’s all imagine the reaction to the first major league player who comes out while active…
33,
I think you are making a valid point w/r/t that future day when that player does indeed come out. But coming out and sharing that with people compared to alleged domestic abuse are worlds apart.
I don’t pretend to have a pulse on locker room psychology, but I can’t reconcile the two in a fair comparison. I would hope that in 2007 domestic abuse would be far far more disapproved than being a sexual preference.
Just nothing more than my $.02, which is all I can offer up.
They won’t announce who the replacement from Tacoma is until tomorrow. I’m thinking Sean Green, but that’s just a guess.
Meanwhile, a good man doesn’t hit his wife unless she is physically, actively trying to kill him, and even then it should only be in self defense. I wonder where the Mariners would stand on keeping a known wifebeater on their active roster. They wouldn’t be the first team to be okay with it and probably not the last.
Well, the former kinda dictates the latter….
Like I said, I want to know the facts. If it was an unprovoked assault, that’s one thing; if there other circumstances (she was going after the nieces and nephews), that’s another.
Well, the closest precedent I can think of resulted in Julio Lugo being sentenced to play 3 years in Tampa Bay.
We should really stop with the speculation and accusation. He hasn’t been charged with a crime yet and is therefore still an innocent. I realize this looks bad, but we have a responsibility to maintain neutrality until otherwise given reason.
In that regard, I’d actually like to request this thread be locked as it’s only going to continue to spawn comments that come laced with personal venom.
I don’t really agree that we have a “responsibility” to maintain neutrality. It would certainly be more fair. But true, this thread is probably going nowhere useful at least until more information can be had.
I’m not sure it’d be going anywhere useful if we had more information, though — it’s just a shitty topic, and I wish there were no news to spark a discussion like this at all.
Well, if the LL crew is any indication, Julio Mateo is already tried, convicted, and executed.
I have no love for people who assault women either, especially their loved ones, but we don’t know if Julio has done jack diddly squat yet. So, I’m afraid I disagree, Lauren, I think we MUST maintain neutrality until the facts come to light.
TIF: I just meant that we, as random people commenting on a situation, don’t really have “responsibility” at all. Responsibility implies we’re in a position of authority here, which we’re not. Absolutely I agree with the innocent-til-proven-guilty philosophy.
AP update at 8:02 p.m.:
TIF: I’d usually agree, but his wife needed 5 stitches at the hospital, and from team accounts, there was some sort of admission that he hit his wife. Some facts lend themselves to inductive reasoning.
i’m not a fan of mateos pitching..
but i dont really want him to go to jail..
i dont mind havin him of the team because we got no1 who can replance him…maybe with the exeption of Huber..but not the way hes pitching this year
i meant there are people who can replace him but not perform any better**
See Green, Sean or Woods, Jake
Sean Green, who probably will get the call, can do a perfectly capable job in middle relief if need be.
Gomez,
My point is that nobody knew that Julio Mateo hit his wife, or mistress, or whatever the hell she is, at the time. What we had was a woman battered, a Mateo cooperating and questioned by police, and no crime; no accusations made.
WE made the accusations. WE automatically assumed the worst. That’s irresponsible.
Now that you know he’s been arrested for third degree assault against the woman, you may spout your ire all over the place. But I would like to remind you that he is still innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
A lot of this reeks of hanging a man because he sucks on the mound more then hanging a man.
TIF, don’t exaggerate my point and don’t try to paint my inductive reasoning as an appeal to guilt by association.
Someone hit that woman in the mouth. Third degree assualt charges and stitches are no small potatoes, and Julio Mateo being led away in handcuffs tells me his business with the cops isn’t just some innocent Q&A session about a misunderstanding. Police do not lead you away in handcuffs if you’re an innocent man. To assume that Julio Mateo is an innocent man that did nothing wrong here is assuming way, way more than anyone taking the given reports at their word, speaking of jumping to conclusions.
Though I see now that the woman’s relationship with Mateo is now unconfirmed. But that’s all that’s been retracted.
The third degree assault charges only came now when he has been formally indicted with a crime. Suspects can be brought in for questioning but they remain nothing but suspects until the line of questioning is finished and the police make a formal charge of crime against an individual.
All this happened recently. We made our judgements about Mateo being a “wifebeater” well before that. Our “knee jerk” reactions irked me to no end. I believe in the letter and measure of the law and that we cannot assign blame and guilt until after a man has had his day in court.
But he only got five minutes from some…
Police do not lead you away in handcuffs if you’re an innocent man.
Actually, yes, yes they do.
http://www.innocenceproject.org/
I’ll choose to reserve my judgment until I know more.
Yeah. Innocent people get led away in cuffs frequently.
I’m going to laugh if this blog’s readers as a group try to paint this as Julio Mateo, Innocent Man Wronged, given the simple details.
TIF, please try and paint this as a misunderstanding.
(Multiple sources are now confirming it was his wife he hit.)
Dude, you are seriously unclear on the point. We’re just saying that until people with a lot more knowledge than we have make a decision on the situation, it doesn’t make sense for us to do so.
NEW YORK — Seattle Mariners reliever Julio Mateo was suspended for 10 days without pay Sunday, a day after he was arrested following a dispute with a woman at a Manhattan hotel.
Julio Mateo
Mateo
Mateo was suspended for missing Saturday’s game without permission, the Mariners said. The suspension, if allowed to stand, would cost him $54,645 of his $1 million salary this year.
The Players’ Association will appeal that one in a heartbeat.
I expect the M’s organization to release Mateo if he’s found guilty of anything. It is, at this point, far too early to make any sort of judgement on whether or not he’s guilty of anything. That’s why we have trials: To separate the guilty from the innocent.
55. I understand the basic concept of reserving judgment until suitable information is available, but c’mon.
People with more knowledge than us, i.e. the NYPD and the media, have already confirmed that Mateo’s wife was struck in his hotel and needed stitches and that he turned himself in voluntarily without denying he had struck her, and that a violent commotion was heard in their hotel room. What, did she fall down the stairs?
Gomez,
I want to stress that I’m not trying make this personal against you as though I’m only attacking your point of view. You’re here, tho, making your case, so I’m replying to you but speaking against a general human behavior to be quick to judge.
/disclaimer
You’re taking the “if it looks like duck, quacks like a duck” approach to this and while we here amongst the “geeky” sabermetrical community use a lot of probabilities in our baseball analysis, when it comes to a matter of crime nad punishment, facts and investigation results are more important. Speculation in court gets immediately thrown out by the judge.
Besides that, when you mention that the media have confirmed things and the media’s reports change from “wife” to “maybe not wife” to “wife” again and the speculation goes from “hit” to “bit”, I don’ts ee how you can find those sources are reliable.
Moreover, the context of the situation is important. Yes, Mateo turned himself in under the charge of assault, but was that because he admitted it and will plead guilty or is it because he’s turning himself in as an innocent man cooperating with the police to clear his name? Do we know for sure he admitted anything? And since when is “not denying” anything an admission of guilt?
Wifebeater or mistressbeater? Or is it wifeBEATER or wifeEATER?
I’m just saying…
Julio Mateo may in fact be guilty of domestic abuse, but in general the American criminal (in)justice system is nothing to put one’s faith in. Blacks, Latinos, and other people of color are disproprionately subject to harrassment, arrest, and ultimately imprisonment by America.
60,
Oh lawd…
61, Nice comeback.
His kids were in the hotel room next door and heard him roughing her up. He spoke remorsefully to the media about how much he loved and appreciated his wife dewspite what he did. He did not deny to the press he did it.
How much more proof do you need, or are you doing everything in your power to refuse to believe this happened?
NY Post article on this
So, where’s the “remorsefully speaking to the media” stuff? I’m not finding it on Google News.
How much more proof do I need? I’ll take a conviction in a court of law. Fair enough?
No one here or elsewhere is arguing that Mateo is innocent. We’re arguing that he has a legal right to due process, and that right will be, and should be, fully exercised before a final judgement is made. That’s how justice works. Unless you work for Alberto Gonzalez or Don Rumsfeld.
Okay, 62, my first comeback was just to ignore the obvious and irrelevant troll with a nonsensical reaction. This is my real reaction:
Oh lord, well there’s no convincing you otherwise is there so what’s the point? You made your inane conclusion based on your own opinions and there’s not a whole lot else to say. Way to go making a indefensible point juxpositioning the popular notion of American racism and the criminal justice system. You played the card nicely and there’s really no way to refute your claim because there’s no way to find evidence to disprove it. So I guess you’re right, in your own mind, and in your own way. Can we now talk about something relevant to Julio Mateo, the fact that he HASN’T BEEN CONVICTED OF ANYTHING YET, and the fact that people have hung the man before he even gets his day in court?
It must be mentioned that O.J. Simpson is a free man and was never convicted of any crime. He was later ‘found liable’ for his wife’s murder but all that netted was a bunch of fines he’s never going to pay anyway.
Also, it must be mentioned that men who hit their wives often escape charges because their wives decline to press charges. Many of these wives are homemakers and rely on their husbands for financial support and would be up the creek if said husband ended up in the can.
Also, as Geoff Baker mentioned on his blog, defendents in these cases frequently plead to lesser charges and are let off the hook. It is likely Mateo is let off and allowed to rejoin the team. I say so be it if that ends up being the case.
That doesn’t mean he didn’t do it.
BTW, you’ll all be pleased to know that our arguments have been summed up by Gomez on the Stranger’s blog. We are “a legion of kids” and, by implication, we are “fucking dense” as well.
Sorry, I should have specified “those of us saying innocent until proven guilty.”
You should have just went ahead and linked it.
Anyway, still waiting on that “Mateo speaking remorsefully to the press” stuff. “Why the f- – - don’t you guys leave me alone?” doesn’t sound very remorseful.
The point has been made that “innocent until proven guilty in a court of law” is a LEGAL standard. I agree. What the prosecutor described to the court in the Post article doesn’t make Mateo look very good…. but I’m also fine with letting a grand jury grind the wheels of justice. THAT is what I meant by “until I know more”, Gomez, but thanks for overgeneralizing!
EC: It’s also true that to make the accused look bad is, well, the prosecutor’s JOB. I thought that Post article did a poor job of making it clear that the prevailing perspective was that of the prosecuting attorney.
It also bears mentioning that the Post tends to be more tabloid-ish in their coverage…. but there’s not a lot of positive spin you can put on 5 stitches and a restraining order, either.
Yes, the article they linked is not the best of sources, for certain, but it’s the Stranger, so what do you expect? They’re always fishing these various sorts of pubs for news items.
Geoff Baker, who has been in New York with the team all this time, is probably a more reliable source on the subject.
It was actually eponymous coward who linked to the article I was referring to, not the Stranger.
Ah, noted.
Geoff Baker’s blog update and the statement from Mateo certainly does make it sound like he committed the violent acts. Now that this is out, though, I still don’t feel bad about not presuming he was guilty yesterday.
Certainly, and without that information, I’m probably in agreement with everybody that says we not rush to judgment.
OK, I think I’d go with what Baker said.
I understand Mateo doesn’t want to plead guilty to anything in public right now and ruin his chance to get a more lenient court result later on than the maximum one year in prison he now faces. He is simply covering his butt as his lawyer has instructed. The Mariners are going along with that plan and that’s their perogative.
But we don’t have to.
If we’re going to be asked by a ballplayer to print an apology, then we shouldn’t have to pretend he is apologizing for stuff he may or may not have done. That’s just ridiculous. So, there it is. No “alleged” to lessen the impact. No pretense.
Gomez: whaaaaa?
Are you now saying that before the Mateo statement you agree he shouldn’t have been prejudged?
His statement, save for all but confirming he did it, isn’t relevant to the information we already had. Statements are contrived and very measured, thus should be taken with a grain of salt.
Typical Idiot Fan: Your nickname seems to describes you well. Are you a cop, DA, judge, or something? Your overreaction to my comment is just a *bit* defensive.
All I said was that Mateo may in fact be guilty, but the American criminal injustice system in general ain’t so just to minorities in the USA. How is that “inane”? Ever heard of “Driving While Black”? Abner Louima? Amadou Diallo? Sean Bell?
Yep, here come the personal flames. Can we end this now?
TIF: Personal flames began with your “troll” rhetoric. But ending this is fine by me.
Yes, but ignoring the “all but confirming he did it” part is like ignoring Vidro’s OPS because he’s hitting .312. It’s a de facto admission- and surely relevant.
I’m sort of confused as to why waiting a day or two to come to a conclusion about what happened is the same as “com(ing) to the defense of such an obvious wifebeater in your entire life”, but hey…