Houston Astros fire Brandon Taubman

Brandon Taubman, the Houston Astros assistant general manager who reportedly taunted a group of reporters in the Astros locker room last weekend during the post-game celebration after the Astros advanced to the World Series, has been fired, the team announced today.

Taubman reportedly had previously expressed displeasure that a female reporter had been critical of the Astros acquisition of Roberto Osuna last year when he was serving a suspension for allegedly beating his girlfriend, and that she had tweeted a domestic violence hotline number when Osuna entered games for Houston last year. Stephanie Apstein wrote a piece for Sports Illustrated detailing how Taubman aggressively and vulgarly yelled at a group of reporters about how glad he was that the Astros traded for Osuna, apparently directly this, in particular, at the (to date unnamed) reporter who he had been unhappy with.

The Astros didn’t comment for the SI article, then released a rather aggressive statement denying the report and claiming Apstein fabricated the story after the article came out. After much blowback, as well as subsequent reporting indicating the backstory mentioned in the paragraph above, Taubman and owner Jim Crane each separately issued apologies of sorts.

It is worth noting that manager A.J. Hinch is the one individual with the organization who, from the outset, handled the situation appropriately, expressing his disappointment with what happened.

The Astros latest statement is below: