Theo Scoffs At Wild Allegation Against Cubs, Reporters Bicker At Each Other Over It

A few days ago the Cubs were accused of threatening a media member with reprisal if he or she didn't lay off Addison Russell and/or the team's handling of him, as he's about to finish serving his 40-game suspension for violating MLB's domestic violence policy.

That allegation was tweeted by Sheryl Ring, who's a lawyer and a contributor to Fangraphs. Her Twitter account is now private, but the story went viral on Sunday.

Mike Gianella, who writes for Baseball Prospectus, said he heard the same thing.

ESPN's Jesse Rogers and The Athletic's Sahadev Sharma responded to the report and both denied having a conversation about their coverage of Russell with anyone representing the Cubs.

However, there was one prominent corroboration coming from Herb Lawrence. He's the executive producer for Cubs baseball on 670 The Score. That's the Cubs radio flagship station.

But again, 670 The Score is in a partnership with the Cubs, so although it's not the most morally right thing to dictate criticism, wanting a positive spin from the flagship station isn't necessarily earth-shattering news.

Theo Epstein responded to the allegation and was obviously upset about it. It's a serious matter, not just because we're talking about trying to control the media, but it's an even worse look when you consider the subject matter of any criticism is about domestic violence and the handling of a player suspended because of serious accusations.

Here's Epstein's response.

"I’d be really surprised if that happened at the Cubs, and if it did I’d want to know who it was because they wouldn’t work for the Cubs much longer. That’s a fireable offense to try to threaten a media member because of unfavorable coverage. Especially on a topic of this nature.”

So, Theo's making it pretty clear. If the accusation is true, make it known who it was and that person will be fired right away.

Bleacher Nation's Brett Taylor pretty much summarized the real issue here. There's a huge difference between the Cubs pushing for good PR and then making the leap to threaten someone if there's negative coverage.

Again, I'm just guessing here, but there most likely was a mandate sent to everyone at 670 The Score to ease off on Russell and not hammer the team too much. Again, The Score is the Cubs radio flagship station.

Anyway, this serious story then became somewhat entertaining, as Paul Sullivan from the Chicago Tribune and Jesse Rogers from ESPN 1000 started to bicker at each other.

It started with Rogers paraphrasing Epstein's response and changing one word that Sullivan took to add more fuel to the fire.

Teams complaining about local coverage? Welcome to the sports industry.

Seems like this entire story was overblown from the start.