After a minor league announcer reported an assault, the team posted her job for the next season without talking to her

This January, Maura Sheridan found out that the play-by-play job she’d held since February 2020 with the Lynchburg (VA) Hillcats (the Cleveland Guardians’ single-A affiliate) had been publicly posted without any discussion with her on if she wanted to return. As Brittany Ghiroli of The Athletic writes in a detailed feature, Sheridan only learned of that posting from friends. That came after Sheridan reported an assault by Hillcats’ player Daritzon Feliz in August 2021; she then finished out the season (through September 13) with the Hillcats, and was planning to return with them the next year before she learned of this posting. The whole feature is well worth reading, but the discussion of the job posting from Sheridan and Hillcats’ general manager/team president Chris Jones particularly stands out.

Sheridan had to call Jones multiple times before she finally reached him the following day.

Sheridan says Jones told her that he thought she had said she wasn’t coming back. “And I said, ‘Don’t you think I would remember that conversation?’” Sheridan says. “He told me the team thought they would give this position to someone that wouldn’t get it otherwise. He was acting like he had given me a job as a charity case as a woman. And it was a one-year situation and then I was done. He said the position is not going to travel anymore and the hours are cut, and the pay is cut.”

“To me, it felt like a very obvious response to what had happened. They didn’t want to have a broadcaster become a liability on the road.”

Jones said there was “no malicious intent” in the team not alerting Sheridan that the position was being posted. “The radio jobs are all seasonal positions. Every year, you know, I changed radio people almost every year. Like it’s always the same thing. They contact you that they want to come back or you go out and find another one. It’s not like — I didn’t not give her the job.”