Ex-Toronto Blue Jays catcher Gregg Zaun opens up on 'inappropriate' comments that led to Sportsnet firing
Former Toronto Blue Jays catcher Gregg Zaun is opening up about his high-profile departure from Sportsnet in 2017.
The 54-year-old was on an episode released Monday of the Toronto Legends podcast, and spoke about losing his broadcasting job after allegations of inappropriate behaviour from several female coworkers.
“There are certain topics of conversation that don’t belong in the workplace,” Zaun said on the podcast. “The biggest mistake that I made was thinking that, because a lot of the conversations and exchanges were initiated by females in the workplace, that they were somehow okay.”
Zaun is currently living in British Columbia after an “amicable split” with his third wife.
“I was just having fun with willing participants. Yeah, the environment was inappropriate. It was my fault for letting it get as far as it did. I should have been classier, and I definitely should be held to a higher level of accountability,” he added of his departure.
Previously, unnamed Sportsnet employees told the Canadian Press that Zaun had made sexual comments “with the clear intention of making us uncomfortable,” while he also wore undershirts frequently around the office.
On the air, Zaun was often branded as the “Manalyst,” a sort of no-holds-barred hyper-masculine persona, but he claims it was pushed by the higher-ups at his former employer.
“Sportsnet created that ‘Manalyst’ guy. They wanted ‘Don Cherry of baseball,’ so I gave it to them,” he added.
Zaun tied his “poor behaviour” with “women and booze” to a history of drinking that began when he was 15 while working as a bullpen catcher for the minor league Toledo Mud Hens.
“That’s where it all started… looking back on it, great experience, also a bad one, you know, that kind of warped my mind on the way things are,” Zaun said. “Back then, we were judged on how many beers we could drink and how much female attention we could get. So it kind of warped my brain, made my priorities a little stupid for a while, actually, for a long while.”
Zaun says he’s been sober for two years and is still waiting for a “second chance” in baseball. Notably, he has worked for three different unaffiliated minor league teams, including most recently with the Tigres de Quintana Roo in Mexico since his Sportsnet firing.
“People misunderstand or underestimate my versatility. I can be whatever you want me to be. You want me to be the loud guy. You want me to cause a ruckus. You want me to polarize the fan base. I can do that,” Zaun said. “Do you want me to just be quiet and go put my head down and be a soldier, and accomplish a list of tasks that you want from me. I can do that too. It’s just easier to blame my past transgressions, my past mistakes, as the reason why you don’t want to have a conversation.’
Zaun last played in the major leagues in 2010, playing 16 years in the MLB, including five in Toronto from 2004 to 2008. He believes that experience could be valuable either in a broadcast or a team setting.
“I can sit there in the dugout and pick up on things that all these statistics guys can’t even come close to understanding,” Zaun said. “I’m not so much of a dinosaur that I don’t understand that analytics are a part of the game. I used them. They just called them something different. We called them data, we called them stats, we called them scouting reports. I wasn’t a great game caller simply because I had great instincts. It was because of data. It was because of scouting reports.”