A baseball blogger who went by the name Ryan Schultz has been fired from gigs at Baseball Prospectus and Beyond the Box Score amid allegations that the writer harassed women on Twitter while posting under an assumed identity.
Schultz’s alleged catfishing ploy, and the harassment that accompanied it, came to light thanks to a Twitter user named Erin, who shared a long note Wednesday night accusing the since-deactivated account of emotionally abusing and harassing her and several of her friends. She claimed that Schultz was not the married man he purported to be but was in fact a 21-year-old woman.
Reached by Awful Announcing on Wednesday night, Erin (who requested we withhold her last name) explained that she met “Schultz” through mutual friends earlier this year and became close with someone she believed to be a male baseball writer. Over time, Erin said, Schultz became “emotionally dependent” on her, resisting her attempts to pull away from the relationship. Erin said Schultz solicited nude photographs from one of her friends and repeatedly harassed her in a way she found manipulative and misogynistic. Erin claims to have discovered Schultz’s supposed true identity by searching through Facebook and tracing the phone number Schultz used to contact her.
A Twitter user with the handle @maddc8, whose bio identifies her as a writer for The Nats Blog, similarly alleged that Schultz was “emotionally abusive” and “predatory.”
https://twitter.com/maddc8/status/928421133338206208
https://twitter.com/maddc8/status/928422038510940160
Schultz, who was known as an active baseball tweeter, wrote for Baseball Prospectus’ Wrigleyville and South Side verticals, as well as SB Nation’s stats site, Beyond the Box Score. A BP Wrigleyville editor tweeted Wednesday that Schultz was terminated from the site’s staff days ago when the allegations of harassment first surfaced, and a representative from Baseball Prospectus confirmed to AA that the writer is no longer involved with BP in any way. A representative from Vox confirmed Schultz was no longer affiliated with SB Nation in any way.
https://twitter.com/ngreabe/status/928438242436878336
Update: “Schultz” has returned to Twitter to post an apology:
https://twitter.com/rschultzy20/status/928712697583161344
About Alex Putterman
Alex is a writer and editor for The Comeback and Awful Announcing. He has written for The Atlantic, VICE Sports, MLB.com, SI.com and more. He is a proud alum of Northwestern University and The Daily Northwestern. You can find him on Twitter @AlexPutterman.