Looks like a Cub 's executive was trying to influence Addison Russell' s coverage.

Nine days before the end of Addison Russell's 40-game suspension for violating the MLB Domestic Violence Policy, Bob Nightengale of USA Today wrote an article about the quest for redemption after his ex wife, Melisa Reidy, assaulted her physically and emotionally. This is the kind of story a franchise would like to see appear: see a redeemed man. But a few days later, Sheryl Ring, a contributor to Fangraphs, said that the team's narrative control extended beyond simply addressing the usual water carriers.

Mike Gianella, editor of the baseball flyer, also tweeted that he had heard similar comments from anonymous sources, and Bill Baer of Hardball Talk wrote that he had received confirmation of Ring's report by a member of the media after publishing a blog Sunday on the subject. Ring told Deadspin, and pointed out in later tweets, that she had several sources that shared similar stories.

The Cubs denied the allegations contained in Baer's report. Theo Epstein spoke specifically about it on Tuesday tell the journalists that the club believes in a free press and that any threat of reprisals against members of the media was "unacceptable". He added:

I would be really surprised if this happened to the Cubs, and if that was the case, I would like to know who it was, because they would no longer work for the Cubs. It is an offense that carries the threat of threatening a member of the media because of unfavorable coverage. Especially on a subject of this nature. This is a fairly serious allegation and, again, I'm not questioning it as such, I just want to make it clear that it would not be acceptable behavior. It would be a controllable offense. If anybody wants to name by name the person who did that, there will obviously be immediate repercussions.

Cubs Vice President of Communications Julian Green was less elegant. Green told 670 The Score on Thursday that he had immediately called the editor of Fangraphs, who had told him that he could not do anything against Ring's tweet, because this one was coming from people. a personal account – which certainly looks like a Cubs leader trying to influence the team's coverage to try to deny allegations that the Cubs are trying to influence the team's coverage. He also seemed to have misunderstood the reason why the reports came from national writers, not authors of specific beats affected by this themselves:

"A person who has had no known or record association with the Cubs and does not act on behalf of a credible media for which they work or are affiliated – which in any case requires high reporting standards – can send a tweet without important facts and not question it because they've sent it from their personal Twitter account – it's egregious, and I think absolute power is not controlled

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"But at no time have we basically said that if you tell a good story, you can have all the access you want and if you tell a bad story, you can not do it."

(Green's statements also point to a misunderstanding of the credibility that these writers have built themselves and shows a lack of understanding of how information circulates on the Internet, but I keep it away from the subject).

Somewhere between these comments, a passionate defense of the team expected water bearers, and the ball club call RussellSupporters of the Cubs have seen a justification in the online defense of their beloved short stop. Ring has since been forced to make his account private because of the growing harassment that resulted from his initial report.

"I woke up yesterday morning with a message calling myself" tranny dike ", and I said that the author would rape me and kill me for ruining Addison Russell 's life. That's what my life was last week – messages like this – I had to lock my Twitter and delete my Facebook public, "Ring told Deadspin." Meanwhile, Julian Green is going through on the radio and boasts of calling my employer and demanding my head, which proves that my story was accurate at first. "