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Jill Porter | Attention, alleged wife-beaters: Phils want you

AFTER ALL the injuries the Phillies have endured, you'd think the team would be careful not to inflict another one by shooting itself in the foot.

AFTER ALL the injuries the Phillies have endured, you'd think the team would be careful not to inflict another one by shooting itself in the foot.

But management is apparently masochistic and misogynistic.

This week, the team that coddled pitcher Brett Myers after he was arrested for allegedly beating his wife - and was blistered in the public outcry that ensued - hired yet another alleged wife-beater.

It simply boggles the mind.

The Phils acquired right-handed relief pitcher Julio Mateo on Tuesday from the Seattle Mariners, a team that didn't want him around anymore. With good reason.

Mateo was arrested in May after he allegedly punched, choked and bit his wife on the lip so violently that she needed stitches, according to newspaper reports.

The case isn't even resolved yet: He's facing a September hearing on charges of third-degree assault in the incident at the team's Manhattan hotel on May 5.

He's out on bail, for God's sake, and has a restraining order that prevents him from seeing his wife, Aurea.

What a fine role model for American's pastime.

Yesterday, Mateo sounded apologetic in comments he made to Daily News sportswriter Steve King, but last week he didn't appear remorseful.

"I'm not guilty of anything," he told a Seattle Post-Intelligencer columnist last week.

"I didn't do anything . . . The way it was put in the newspaper, it didn't happen that way."

Sound familiar?

Myers also claimed he was innocent after being arrested last year for allegedly slapping his wife and pulling her by the hair on a Boston sidewalk - an incident that was witnessed by passers-by.

The charges were dropped when his wife declined to prosecute - a typical turn of events in domestic-violence cases.

But Philadelphia fans weren't quite as forgiving - especially when Phillies management reacted with indifference, allowing Myers to continue pitching, and making wildly insensitive remarks.

The public backlash was so intense - even jock-radio hosts chastised the team - that the contrite Phils met with advocates for victims of domestic violence to confront the issue.

According to the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic Violence, the Phillies attended a summit on domestic violence in the workplace in December, required all players to attend training on "gender violence" at spring training, planned executive staff training for this fall, and "committed to adopt a domestic violence policy for their administrative and front office staff."

All to no apparent effect.

"The acquisition of a player charged with assault on his wife does not fit with an organization which claims to take domestic violence seriously," said Susan Kelly-Dreiss, the coalition's executive director.

The agency, she said in a written statement, is "baffled and greatly disappointed."

Team spokesman Larry Shenk had a less-than-vigorous defense, because, really, what could he say?

Shenk said Mateo "is a quality big-league pitcher in many people's minds," but that the Phils take domestic violence seriously "and will make Julio know our stance."

How can they do that if they've overlooked his alleged abuse and given him a job?

"I can't answer that," Shenk said.

He acknowledged that Mateo's hiring could seem insensitive, to say the least, in the aftermath of the Myers debacle.

"We did after last year's incident take a proactive approach. It so happened to be that this deal was made. It's a baseball decision deal."

The team is sending Mateo to its Double A team for now, but hopes to bring him to the majors soon.

Indeed.

The Phils have made their priorities clear: Who cares about battering when a pitcher can handle batters?

It's a disgrace that demeans the game and is a self-inflicted wound to a team that can ill afford another injury. *

E-mail porterj@phillynews.com or call 215-854-5850. For recent columns:

http://go.philly.com/porter