ESPN said that a settlement has been reached in the lawsuit filed by former baseball analyst Harold Reynolds over his firing.
Reynolds sued the sports network for at least $5 million in October 2006, three months after he was fired. He claimed he was wrongly fired after a female intern complained about what he called a “brief and innocuous” hug and said he filed the suit to set the record straight and restore his name.
Reynolds played 12 seasons in the major leagues and worked at ESPN for 11 years. He has been an analyst for MLB.com since July 2007.
Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
“My family and I are ecstatic,” Reynolds said in a statement Tuesday night. “This was a matter of principle and I stood on principle and never wavered. All of my goals were met and now I look forward to concentrating on the game I love.”
An ESPN spokesman says the suit was settled last week in Hartford Superior Court.
According to the lawsuit, ESPN terminated Reynolds’ contract “for cause,” but gave no further explanation or specific reasons.
ESPN spokesman Mike Soltys said the resolution allows the network to spare the people involved any further disruptions and that the settlement was “economically compelling” for ESPN.
“It was a fraction of his demands and substantially less than what it would have cost us to litigate the case,” Soltys said. “Our confidence in both the appropriateness of our action and our legal position never wavered.”
Reynolds played for the Seattle Mariners, Baltimore Orioles and the California Angels before joining ESPN. He won three Gold Glove awards and one stolen base title and was a two-time All-Star.
