Slog News & Arts

Line Out

Music & Nightlife

« America's Dumbest Gay People | Hypocrisy at the PI: Elite Lun... »

Monday, May 7, 2007

You Gotta Love Those Guys

posted by on May 7 at 10:22 AM

Or not.

Julio Mateo was arraigned on assault charges and released on bail Sunday, about 36 hours after police say he punched, bit and choked his wife at the Mariners’ team hotel.

RSS icon Comments

1

Classy guy.

Posted by Mr. Poe | May 7, 2007 10:26 AM
2

Look at it this way: anything that gets Mateo's sucky pitching off this team is a good thing, or at least a silver lining.

Posted by Fnarf | May 7, 2007 10:53 AM
3

Rough gig when everyone is down on you.

Posted by Lloyd Clydesdale | May 7, 2007 10:56 AM
4

scumbag. He bit a chunk off her lip while their kids were in the hotel room.

hopefully we will not see him again in an M uniform.

Posted by SeMe | May 7, 2007 11:00 AM
5

He's been arrested and charged and the Mariners have suspended him and will most likely fire him. Professional and college sports have a long way to go before they completely sweep the criminals out of their ranks, but you can blame the Player's Unions for that.

Posted by elswinger | May 7, 2007 11:01 AM
6

I'm sorry, you can WHAT? How is the union responsible for Mateo's (alleged) crime?

Posted by Fnarf | May 7, 2007 11:11 AM
7

And what possible role do the unions have in the preponderance of criminals on COLLEGE sports rosters? College athletes aren't unionized; they're slaves. 99% of them never receive any wage for the work they do besides permanently disabling injuries.

Posted by Fnarf | May 7, 2007 11:13 AM
8

Look at it this way: anything that gets Mateo's sucky pitching off this team is a good thing, or at least a silver lining.

But it also means Hargrove is going to grind Brandon Morrow to dust in the meantime.

Also, I'm not getting the part with the college sports and unions. Fnarf is right -- they're effectively slaves, getting "an education" in exchange for athletic departments and TV networks making millions off of them while Bubbas bloviate to sports radio why they need to be benched.

Posted by dw | May 7, 2007 11:22 AM
9

A legion of kids at USSM are insisting, to paraphrase, 'We shouldn't pass judgment on Mateo until we have more info and he has had due process and his trial.'

Um, WHAT? His wife needed stitches to close a gash on her lip. His kids in the hotel room next door heard him roughing her up. He turned himself in without denying he did it. The police confirmed to the media that he hit her.

How fucking dense can you possibly be to still think there's reasonable doubt?

Posted by Gomez | May 7, 2007 11:23 AM
10

I didn't say the players union was responsible for Mateo's crime, I said every time the MLB, NFL, or NBA tries to punish players for off the field crimes, the player's unions* object.

I'm sorry to have included college players, my bad.

* Let's not confuse the Player's Unions with SEIU of AFL/CIO. I can be pro union and still disagree with much of what player's unions stand for. In my opinion they are almost as despicable as the NRA.

Posted by elswinger | May 7, 2007 11:45 AM
11

Gomez, you're a Bushie at heart, aren't you? Guantanamo first, ask questions later; habeas corpus is for pussies. Right? Actually, Mateo, like every other accused criminal from Ted Bundy on down, is legally presumed to be innocent until proven guilty in a court. To argue otherwise is to accept state terror.

The union sticks up for their players for a similar reason; they are required to. If they didn't, the teams would IMMEDIATELY abuse their power. That's how power works. People who think they're immune to that temptation are even more ridiculous than people who think criminal justice should be based on a ten-second TV news report.

Mateo's going to get due process. He SHOULD get due process. If he's guilty, he'll be punished, by the law and by baseball. Due process and the rights of women to not get beat up by their spouses are not incompatible; they are in fact rooted in identical principles.

Honestly, it's like you folks don't understand WHY the Bush administration's actions are wrong at all.

Posted by Fnarf | May 7, 2007 11:52 AM
12

This reeks of token disagreement, Fnarf. C'mon, "Bushie"? You can come up with a better personal attack than that.

Keep in mind that many spouses who hit their wives often get let off without penalty because their wives, most of whom rely on said husbands for financial support, would have nowhere else to go if he was thrown in jail. They aren't absolved legally because they're innocent and didn't do anything, but only because their wives felt it easier to not press charges.

Posted by Gomez | May 7, 2007 11:57 AM
13

No, it's more than that, Gomez. You're arguing for an exemption to the right to due process. That is EXACTLY the kind of thing that has taken Bush and company down into the sewer. Bush isn't a bad president because he's a Republican; he's a bad president because his single-minded focus on the consolidation of power has, as is INEVITABLE, caused him to abuse it. Do you think it's a surprise that the Patriot Act was almost immediately used against not terrorists but Democrats, in Texas? That's what happens when you are granted unlimited power.

If you can't see the connection between that and your call to crush Mateo without due process, habeas corpus, and a trial by a jury of his peers, then you ARE, in fact, infected with the same moral virus as Bush and Co.

Mateo is "obviously guilty". So are lots of bad guys -- including more than a few bad guys who turn out to be obviously innocent later on. The prisons are full of guys who are in the process of being freed by DNA evidence, for instance. ALL of these guys were "obviously guilty".

If you hang Mateo for being obviously guilty, and wipe out his rights, you open the door to terror, and the next guy who's going to be hauled away with a "don't worry, he's guilty as hell, we saw him do it" might very well be you.

Because you have no frigging idea what happened in that hotel room. Remember that.

And there's no need to lecture me about domestic violence, child. I know more than you do. I'm not letting Mateo off the hook. But he deserves a fair trial -- if you do.

Posted by Fnarf | May 7, 2007 12:11 PM
14

Fnarf...you rule.

Posted by Mr. Poe | May 7, 2007 12:33 PM
15

Wow. Thanks for letting me see how there's a connection betwen a third-rate pitcher and Bushler's attack on civil rights, ya know?

Posted by Lord Nigel Featherston | May 7, 2007 1:14 PM
16

No, but there's a connection between those who are eager to deny civil rights to people they don't like.

Posted by Fnarf | May 7, 2007 1:35 PM
17

WHATEVER, Fnarf. Whatever happens in a court of law, the fact is that Julio Mateo did it. He is a wifebeater, and if the Mariners are cool with having a known wifebeater on their team, that is their prerogative.

Remember that O.J. Simpson basically sliced off two people's heads and is a free man. The word of the court system is merely a technicality these days, rather than a true judgment of character.

Posted by Gomez | May 7, 2007 1:36 PM
18

Gomez, dude, it's OK. You're wrong. Just admit it. Nobody will think less of you.

If you ever get arrested, pray the jurors have a better grasp on law and responsibility than you've displayed here.

Posted by Matthew | May 7, 2007 1:56 PM
19

gomez:Whatever happens in a court of law, the fact is that Julio Mateo did it. He is a wifebeater, and if the Mariners are cool with having a known wifebeater on their team, that is their prerogative.

exactly. saying that he did it, isn't the same as saying he shouldn't get a fucking legal trial. and no, they aren't close.

what is dangerous about believing that they are close is that we become an ever more conservative and legalistic culture in which reality can't be discussed or debated until the Law decides an event has actually occurred. that is far more dangerous than citizens discussing events which occur in their communities and are understood to be true.

what we understand to be true may change as information and events unfold, but maintaining that there is no reality and that no judgment can be made until reality is determined by an external legal structure is rather on the fascist side.

Posted by chuckles | May 7, 2007 1:59 PM
20

Both of you have lost your grasp on reality. I live in a world of fools.

Posted by Gomez | May 7, 2007 2:01 PM
21

Or trolls. I can't be sure anymore.

I love how Bush's name and habeas corpus is invoked in defense of a man who busted his wife's lip open, mere yards from, and within earshot of, his children.

I'm not talking about whether or not this guy deserves a fair trial. Sure he does. And he hit his wife. Whether or not he gets away with it is a matter of debate. Whether or not he did it is not. If taking the facts and connecting the dots makes me a Bushie and a terrorist to you, then so be it. You're clearly not thinking straight anyway: you're no better than the right wingers who use the same labeling tactics and slippery slope fallacies to discredit the liberal base.

Posted by Gomez | May 7, 2007 2:06 PM
22


As one of the "kids" from USSM (nice way to imply we don't know what we're talking about, by the way) who was pushing the innocent-til-proven-guilty side of things, I'm glad to see that people more eloquent than me are pointing out exactly why Gomez's argument is idiocy.

Of course, Gomez has a point. I mean, how many times has a crime been handled by the legal system and the verdict rendered and we all feel like idiots because we could have judged the perpetrator MUCH earlier if only we had known? All that wasted time!

Posted by Lauren | May 7, 2007 2:14 PM
23

I feel bad for all the parties involved. Baseball life is a demanding life for the players and their families.

Posted by Lloyd Clydesdale | May 7, 2007 2:23 PM
24

You're a Nazi, Gomez.

Posted by fnarf | May 7, 2007 2:32 PM
25

Hi, Lauren! I'm gonna rehash a point I made elsewhere, as it's obvious I'm being (intentionally?) misunderstood:

As for whether he deserves a trial or not, never do I make it an issue of whether or not be deserves a trial, yet many people want to paint my points as such. Everyone deserves a fair trial, and he may get left off the hook anyway: Many spouses who hit their wives often get let off without penalty because their wives, most of whom rely on said husbands for financial support, would have nowhere else to go if he was thrown in jail. They aren't absolved legally because they're innocent and didn't do anything, but only because their wives felt it easier to not press charges.

Also, as Baker mentions in that last entry, suspects often plead to lesser charges and get off without jail time.

As for whether or not he should be allowed to rejoin the team... one accusation I get is that since I don't like Mateo as a player anyway, that I'm using that as a bias. Bullshit: if Felix hernandez ended up in the can for smacking around his wife, I'd be extremely disappointed, and if he did it, I'd want him to end up in jail as well. Ditto Ichiro.

Richie Sexson drove while intoxicated and had to go to court shortly after he signed with the M's. The M's signed known right wing homophobe Carl Everett last year, who was at points abusive to his wife and kids. It's not unprecedented to let players onto the team despite their wrongdoings. And the Mariners wouldn't be the only ones playing known criminals. The Red Sox have quite a few dirtbags and wifebeaters on their squad (relief pitcher Mike Timlin is a known wifebeater and drunk). The game's always been full of brutes and thugs. It's baseball, not church.

Posted by Gomez | May 7, 2007 2:39 PM
26

Also, as Baker mentions in that last entry, suspects often plead to lesser charges and get off without jail time.

Apologies, this is in reference to this commentary. Remember that Geoff Baker is with the team and has been a lot closer to this chain of events than the rest of us.

Posted by Gomez | May 7, 2007 2:41 PM
27

Actually fnarf, your stance is more toward the fascist that gomez's. Which is what I assume you mean by "nazi" because if you meant "nazi" you might actually be an idiot.

can anyone show me where gomez has advocated an abridgment of mateo's legal rights? i'm kind of getting a headache searching and i might have missed it.

Posted by chuckles | May 7, 2007 2:54 PM
28

Yeah, baseball players got it rough what with all the millions of dollars they get to play a fucking game that I can't afford to buy a ticket for even though I had to pay for their god damned stadium even though I (along with a majority of voters) voted against it.

Poor guys.

Posted by monkey | May 7, 2007 3:13 PM
29

you cant afford a 7 dollar seat? damn bro you is poor as a mo fo!

on the above handkerchief duel between gomez and fnarf, i gotta say. im with gomez, i think fnarf went too aclu ( and i love the aclu) on us. when it wasnt really necessary.

for the record no one is saying that mateo doesnt deserve due process- of course he does. he is not guilty until his high priced lawyer gets him off. he deserves his day in court. i think we are merely weighing in on an opinion based on available info. just an opinion. thats all. sure as hell looks like he is as guilty as oj, we could be wrong, but it is just an opinion. it would be different if someone said, that mother doesnt deserve a trial. castrate him now. that doesnt mean were "bushies" or fascists, lets settle down before we begin to bring Hitler, Kim Il Sung and Stalin into this.

Posted by SeMe | May 7, 2007 5:03 PM
30

Monkey -- 162 games (not counting Spring Training or playoffs) in 7-8 months, half away from home (and much of that away from family & friends, country of origin). Very, very few days off. It's not an easy gig. Then top that off with everyone sitting around saying that you're a talentless hack not deserving the dough that the market has borne you, and, well, that's a tough job.

Mateo's not A-Rod either; he doesn't get that huge money. A lot of guys don't. I'll bet Mateo's dough spends pretty quickly. Any player trying to make the pro team has basically worked for "sweat equity" prior to the Bigs. Plus, if your career lasts, what, 4-5 years, you're not necessarily set for life. There's money disparity *inside* pro sports, too.

The "millions of dollars" agument can't just be applied as a blanket statement.

I feel bad for the guy and his family. That's a BAD DAY in the ol' Relationship for the Mateos. I doubt any of them were looking forward to a day like this when they got hitched. It's really not that hard to make a bad decision and end up in handcuffs. Shit, I look around at people I know of here in Seattle. It's not hard to be imperfect. It's not hard to let your family structure drift off into 'nothing's wrong til it all blows up'. That fucking sucks. That's what I'm saying.

Posted by Lloyd Clydesdale | May 7, 2007 5:29 PM
31

LLoyd. Maybe. But.

Come on man, he bit her lip!!

Posted by SeMe | May 7, 2007 5:37 PM
32

Chuckles: Gomez said, and I quote: "How fucking dense can you possibly be to still think there's reasonable doubt?"

He also said, and I quote: "A legion of kids at USSM are insisting, to paraphrase, 'We shouldn't pass judgment on Mateo until we have more info and he has had due process and his trial.'" Obviously he disagrees with that sentiment.

He also said "The police confirmed to the media that he hit her."

That's fascism, straight up. Oh, the police said so, well then, it MUST be true. Who could ever doubt the police?

None of you people know a damn thing about what happened in that hotel room. None of you were there. None of you have talked to anyone who was there. You read an article in the Post.

The rights of the accused are if anything MORE important when he or she is "obviously guilty", because if you remove that right from the obviously guilty you will necessarily remove it from everyone else post haste. If you decide to just take the cops' word for it, you have been enslaved.

So "Nazi" sounds too strong to you, but that's because you don't understand what civil rights are. "Nazi" is a precise description of a point of view here: Gomez says Mateo doesn't deserve due process because hitting a woman is too severe a crime to require proof and because the cops say he did it. That is EXACTLY the argument used in Guantanamo Bay and Bagram and Abu Ghraib, and it's EXACTLY the argument used in the formulation of the Nazi state. I'm sorry you can't see that. And I'm sorry you think fair trials are "too ACLU".

Posted by Fnarf | May 7, 2007 5:43 PM
33

I KNOW, SeMe. I don't think it's right. There's plenty of tragedy on all their plates right now. I hate these kind of shattering situations.

Posted by Lloyd Clydesdale | May 7, 2007 5:54 PM
34

youre misquoting my man. im all for fair trials.

Posted by SeMe | May 7, 2007 5:55 PM
35

I work for a criminal defense attorney. I believe, above all, that all people deserve to be treated as innocent until proven guilty. Now let me tell you how I see this situation going down.

Young Mateo's "high-priced" lawyer will acquire the discovery in this case, which includes police reports and medical evidence. Mateo will then appear on June 15th, be advised, and his lawyer will start the negotiations with the district attorney. A process will evolve due to the evidence against him in which his lawyer works to get him the best deal possible and the DA will make the offer because it's one less case on the docket, and Mateo will likely plead to a lesser charge. (Rarely do these matters advance all the way to trial.) It's all really quite cut-and-dried. He'll pay a fine & court costs, take a few anger management classes. Either Mrs. M will forgive him or she will not. He will move on with his life, possibly to beat another woman (or the same one, depending) or learn a lesson and keep his goddamned hands to himself.

What I find most appalling in this situation, frankly, is the incredibly laissez-faire attitude the police and the team manager seem to exhibit. And I quote: "Aurea Mateo was treated and released from St. Vincent's Hospital, where she received five stitches to close a laceration in her lip. A police spokesman said her injuries were "very minor."

*Five stitches* are not very minor. Cops are idiots.

And: "It's natural that guys are going to be concerned," he said. "We'll just go on about our business. I don't know if there's any way you can address that. It is what it is, and we'll just move on."

Major league athletes and their managers are idiots.

Posted by ChillyMama | May 7, 2007 9:05 PM
36

fnarf, i know you think that you are always on the world stage, but you're not. this is the comments section of a local blog. therefore someone like gomez saying any and all of things you quoted, well, they are nothing more than an expression of opinion. one that he is allowed to both form and express, and NONE of which call for or constitute an abridgment of mateo's rights.

if an employee of the county prosecutor's office said "there was no reasonable doubt" to the press in a formal capacity then THAT would actually be something to discuss. because in that case there is a person with the power to impact mateo's legal recourses.

"shouldn't pass judgment" -- yes he does disagree with that sentiment! that is not in ANY WAY an abridgment of mateo's rights. that is gomez's opinion, based on lots of things that have been reported and confirmed from various sources. judgment is merely a decision based on known factors, people do it all the time. it is not in any way a call for legal action or a decree to skip the formalities and hang the guy. it's a legitimate response -- yes i actually believe you should view the world around you and make decisions about what you see. that is all gomez is saying, see the world -- respond to it. don't pretend that EVERY DAMN THING is unknowable or mysterious.

refusing to allow that individuals can make a decision about the world around you unless the Law tells you what really happened is fascist.

nothing gomez said is fascism, it's both hilarious and terrifying that you think that judgment is fascism.

gomez NEVER said he didn't deserve due proces, where do you get that? mateo's RIGHTS are in question NOWHERE in any of these comments. you are screaming about something that hasn't happened, and it's kind of freaky, you seriously seem unstable. i wish i were kidding.

nazi doesn't sound too strong, it is just wrong. it's an error almost beyond comprehension. of course, with logic like: i disagree because i don't know what civil rights are, i'm starting to think i'm unstable for even bothering to try. seriously? you said that? to someone on a comments board you've never met? you have no idea what my life is or has been. do you think that you sound smart or righteous? because you don't, it makes you sound like an adolescent who still believes he has both the greatest knowledge and pain that the world has ever seen.

and i didn't say you were "too aclu" that was someone else. jesus you are unhinged.

Posted by chuckles | May 7, 2007 9:50 PM
37

Over at USS Mariner Gomez also said:

"Police do not lead you away in handcuffs if you’re an innocent man."

Fortunately, commenters over there were quick to jump all over this one. I hoped that this was not a reflection of his actual beliefs, but have seen nothing to indicate otherwise.

And that kind of logic does indeed lead down the slippery slope of loss of rights and liberties straight into the hell of the Bushies and Gitmo.

It doesn't take much to get from:
"Obviously they're guilty, they wouldn't have been arrested otherwise. We only arrest the guilty."


to: "Obviously they're terrorists, otherwise they wouldn't be here. We only hold terrorists."

Posted by gnossos | May 7, 2007 11:47 PM
38

Well, this is one of those type of stories where the actual people involved quickly become mere symbols for people's individual agendas.

Some people seem to think that a priveledged type (a man, a sports "millionaire", an untouchable to us blue collar types) is deserving of a type of inescapable punishment -- since they will be able to easily escape the judicial system. They are to be run through the mob gauntlet on their way to their hearing.

Other people seem to think that here you have a guy who's an easy target to be made an example of because he did something veeery un-pc (by which I mean an act that attaches readily to a hot-button term) -- something we've been drilled to immediately revile and punish. So there is a defense here; this this guy (or woman), like you and me, has recourse to his rights and due process, and though the court of public opinion might think one way, it is rightly trumped by the court of....well, court.

Look, I've agreed with both Gomez and Fnarf before. I'm glad I'm hearing each of their opinions, though their horns have gotten a bit overly locked up here. The only thing I want to remind you guys of is that the welfare of all the people involved, the Mateo family, is ultimately the most important thing. What this particular story reflects on a larger scale is important, too, but we do have real people attached who are part of our Seattle world stuck in the middle of a theoretical argument. They could use a little bit of our support.

Posted by Lloyd Clydesdale | May 8, 2007 9:36 AM
39

for those still interested in this...turns out this was not Mateo's first brush with DV.

The Seattle Times reports that SPD responded to a 911 call from his apartment the week before.

Now the question is, why the hell didn't they pursue it further?

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/mariners/2003698806_webmateo08.html

Posted by gnossos | May 8, 2007 9:50 PM
40

Hello everyone, wanna be part of some kind of community, possible here? anyone here?

Posted by Buy antivirus | May 10, 2007 2:07 PM
41

MSN I NIIPET
MSN

Posted by Bill | May 12, 2007 6:56 PM
42

jzrkxbd qfgv anjkvysx aoumygz abzrh lqphvryg fmvegzt

Posted by nxpvryct ctxvqfy | May 16, 2007 8:05 PM
43

jzrkxbd qfgv anjkvysx aoumygz abzrh lqphvryg fmvegzt

Posted by nxpvryct ctxvqfy | May 16, 2007 8:06 PM
44

uszgcmq lvize cntdr xbolzrah sznlxwik mfnowgv entk http://www.whjyi.fuwlh.com

Posted by owunmciy uefhbanq | May 16, 2007 8:07 PM

Comments Closed

In order to combat spam, we are no longer accepting comments on this post (or any post more than 14 days old).