Former sports reporter Kat O'Brien reveals she was raped by an unnamed MLB player who forced himself on her during an interview in Texas hotel room in 2002
A former sports reporter has revealed that she was raped by an unnamed Major League Baseball player in 2002.
Kat O'Brien wrote in a New York Times op-ed published on Sunday that she was attacked in a hotel room while interviewing the player when she was a 22-year-old junior reporter.
She did not name the player or the team he was on.
O'Brien said she had been out of college for a year and was working in Texas for The Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
O'Brien spent the '02 season covering a story about how foreign players adjusted to life in the United States.
'I sat down in a hotel room with my interview subject. We spoke for a few minutes as I asked some questions and he answered. Then he moved suddenly to kiss me,' she wrote.
'I said, no, no, I don't want that, but he pushed me over to the bed. I tried to shove him. I said no, stop, no, stop, over and over. He pushed further, getting on top of me, pulling off my skirt, and having sex with me against my will.
'While it was happening, I couldn't process that it was happening to me. I said no, again and again. Too terrified to move, I froze. Afterward, I remember getting in my car, shaking, to drive home, and looking at my blue-and-white skirt from Express, and thinking why did I have to be wearing a skirt? Because it was Texas in summer.
'I remember, once I got back to my apartment, drinking a bottle of red wine in a desperate attempt to numb my sadness and rage. Instead, I threw up all over the carpet.'
O'Brien, a graduate of Notre Dame, covered the Texas Rangers for the Star-Telegram and then the New York Yankees for Newsday.
O'Brien is pictured above at the final game at the old Yankees stadium, which shut in 2008. She was covering the New York Yankees for Newsday at the time
O'Brien, a graduate of Notre Dame, covered the Texas Rangers for the Star-Telegram and then the New York Yankees for Newsday. Pictured above is the Rangers stadium back in 2002
The former MLB writer said she never reported the attack because she was convinced it would ruin her career.
'I was 22 with no track record, and at that time — nearly two decades ago — most people in baseball would have rallied to protect the athlete. So I blamed myself,' she said.
'I must have been too nice, too trusting, too friendly and open. Even though I said no, it must have been a misunderstanding.'
O'Brien also revealed that she was terrified that the story might one day get out and was fearful that she was the subject of locker room gossip.
Not long after the rape, she said she bumped into an All-Star player at the Arlington, Texas, ballpark in the visiting team's clubhouse.
O'Brien said the player stared at her before saying her name and the name of her alleged rapist.
'Suddenly I realized he must have told people, making himself out to be a stud and me some girl who was there to pick up ball players instead of do my job,' O'Brien said.
After the rape, she said she avoided taking jobs in cities where the rapist was playing baseball and tried not to take higher-profile writing gigs for fear that it might lead to her story getting out.
O'Brien said she had been out of college for a year and was working in Texas for The Fort Worth Star-Telegram
'The rape followed me at work, and in the rest of my life I pushed away anything that brought traumatic memories back,' O'Brien said.
'I didn't really date until more than four years later, I didn't trust that intimacy. I kept people at a distance. It was easy to explain away this choice to others, and myself.'
The writer said she would never name her attacker because that would give him the power to slander her name.
'I choose not to name him because it would only open me up to the possibility of having dirt thrown on my reputation; even all these years later and in the wake of the #MeToo movement, a former professional athlete wields considerable power. I hope I can help bring about systemic change rather than seek unlikely-to-come justice for one horrible act,' she said.
O'Brien said she had decided to come forward after reading reports in January that New York Mets General Manager Jared Porter had been fired for sexting a female reporter.
She said it brought back memories of her own experience and also made her realize she was not to blame for what had happened.
'I hadn't been a sports reporter in 11 years, but as I read accounts of other women's experiences with sexual harassment, the full force of my own assault hit me,' she said.
'And with it came the relief that I actually hadn't invited it, hadn't done anything wrong at all, something I had never once considered.'
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