“We F—ing Got Osuna”: Examining the Maintenance of Patriarchy and Journalistic Routines in A Major League Baseball Clubhouse

Abstract

ABSTRACT Elite professional athletes in the NBA, NHL, NFL and MLB have all been accused of domestic violence. This occurs in a cultural arena already predicated on patriarchy and capitalism and rife with toxic masculinity, which combine to create traumatic, gendered realities for women sports journalists and violent and exploitative labor norms for athletes. Through a critical discourse analysis of 76 articles from U.S. newspapers, magazines, and online news sites, this study examines the specific case of a 2019 outburst from Houston Astros assistant general manager Brandon Taubman, who directed pointed praise of an Astros player accused of domestic violence at three female sports journalists, one of whom wore a domestic violence awareness bracelet. By examining news coverage of this prominent incident — and the meta-journalistic discourse that permeated it — this study identified three problematic discursive maneuvers through which journalists avoided directly addressing the topic of patriarchy and its influence in this incident and the wider sports industry, while instead prioritizing issues of journalistic credibility and baseball culture and minimizing domestic violence as strategic distraction.