Broken Promises, Broken Trust by Stephon Johnson December 10, 2019 Tim Anderson was suspended for an odd reason last season after a benches-clearing situation. (via Keith Allison) Have you ever dealt with a parent post-divorce who keeps disappointing you with broken promises? Have you, despite everything, allowed yourself to feel a little bit of hope, only to have that hope inevitably dashed again? That’s what being a fan of Major League Baseball has felt like in 2019. Against a litany of promises made to address issues facing the game this season, to make positive change and allow baseball to grow, MLB has continued to excuse and defer, sending mixed signals about where their priorities lie. Here are three of the greatest disappointments of the season. MLB’s system, from the ground up, has given off mixed signals to players, media, and fans about the celebration of on-field emotion and swagger. Promise: In the lead-up to the 2018 postseason, MLB launched its “Rewrite the Rules” campaign with filled with bat flips, home runs, pitchers celebrating strikeouts, and the all-around joy that should be experienced while playing sports. The spot ends with the king of baseball swag, Ken Griffey, Jr., saying “No more talk. Let the kids play.” The Let The Kids Play campaign resurfaced at the beginning of the 2019 season, with players like Christian Yelich, Giancarlo Stanton, and Mike Trout celebrating the display of emotion and swagger on the field. This would be a welcome change from the mindset that treats shows of emotion like the scourge of the earth. Promise Broken: Enter Chicago White Sox Shortstop Tim Anderson. Anderson, then on a season-opening hot streak and, eventually, the winner of the 2019 AL batting title, hit a walk-off home run against the Kansas City Royals. It was an epic display: He didn’t really flip the bat as much as throw the damn thing down like Chris Rock drops the mic at the end of every stand-up special. His work was done. The Sox had won. The Royals responded in kind, hitting Anderson with a pitch the next time they faced the White Sox. A little pushing and shoving and trash-talking ensued, and suspensions were handed out, including to Anderson. But the suspension wasn’t for the bat flip, or for the pushing and shoving — it was for saying the N-word. Anderson is Black. Everyone wanted to weigh in on the controversy that ensued, including Boston Red Sox pitcher Chris Sale. Sale, who famously cut the sleeves off of his uniform in a rage before a start because he thought it would affect his pitching — a shining example, surely, of sportsmanship in the modern era. Sale said of Anderson: “I feel if you’re showing positive emotion for your team, that’s great. Flip your bat all you want. But I think if you’re showing the other guy up – and a pitcher can do that too – that would be unsportsmanlike.” In other words: bat flips are fine. Just don’t flip on me. It’ll hurt my feelings. During a Dodgers/Giants game this season, a similar dynamic manifested itself when Max Muncy hit a home run off Madison Bumgarner. Bumgarner, notorious for yelling at batters for admiring home runs, for getting mad at themselves when they missed a pitch, and for their existence in general, didn’t take to Muncy admiring his home run. During the post-game, when asked about his reaction, Bumgarner responded by using the Let the Kids Play campaign for his own purposes. “They want to let everybody be themselves. Let me by myself — that’s me, you know?” Bumgarner told reporters. “I’d just as soon fight than walk or whatever. You just do your thing, I’ll do mine. Everybody is different. I can’t speak for everybody else, but that’s just how I want to play. And that’s how I’m going to.” But the issue is that pitchers like Bumgarner are always allowed to be themselves. Batters don’t get the same leeway. Getting angry at bat flips by responding with a 95-mph fastball to the ribs is a special brand of absurdity. MLB needs to do something about unnecessary beanballs over home run celebrations. Pitchers have a weapon in their hands when they’re on the mound. But people forget that hitters have a weapon too. Ask John Roseboro. Teams continue to prioritize “payroll flexibility” and profit margins over fielding the best on-field product for players and fans. Promise: This year’s free agency has gotten off to an interesting start with the Philadelphia Phillies signing pitcher Zack Wheeler to a bigger contract than the Washington Nationals’ Patrick Corbin. But it’s been a while since we could say that a team “overpaid” for a player, huh? Stop lying to yourself: You know it felt good. The Nationals just signed Stephen Strasburg to a record-breaking deal (though much of the money was deferred). And the New York Yankees could possibly reward Gerrit Cole a record contract by the time this story goes up. After last year’s offseason, whispers of collusion began to fly, and players began to openly voice their displeasure. But MLB executives assured the public that the market was perfectly healthy — all the result of smarter decision-making, nothing to worry about. Some see the deals being made in this offseason as proof positive of those assertions. Broken Promise: With the current labor agreement set to expire at the end of next season, baseball fans around the country need to gear up for a work stoppage. The owners are intent on breaking the union at all costs, keeping salaries low and using the luxury tax as a defacto salary cap. Our economy continues to move toward low-paying, unstable gigs and less towards careers, and no one is going to feel sorry for athletes complaining about money when it involves millions of dollars. The owners know this and plan on taking advantage of the pro-management culture than inundated the country over the past couple of decades. A Hardball Times Updateby RJ McDanielGoodbye for now. But MLB has recovered from multiple work stoppages over the years through the quality of its on-field product. Whether it was colorful teams or performance-enhancing drugs, something was always there to bring the fans back eventually. With even diehard fans complaining about the current pace and style of play, attendance on the decline, and a disproportionate number of teams electing to cut payrolls and field poor teams for strategic purposes, what’s to say those fans ever come back? Owners making money hand over fist don’t care, but Commissioner Rob Manfred should. Terms like “payroll flexibility” shouldn’t be uttered in a sport without a salary cap. No matter how much money is being made, seeing tons of empty seats at the ballpark does not endear the sport to anyone interested in getting into it. Speaking of which… While MLB has made efforts to grow the game on a grassroots level, the barriers to entry and cultural issues surrounding the sport continue to worsen. Promise: Manfred and others in the MLB front office have talked incessantly about “growing the game” and the sport of baseball in general. The Reviving Baseball in Inner Cities (RBI) program and the Urban Invitational at the New Orleans MLB Youth Academy have helped a few Black baseball players make their to the major leagues and have successful careers. Recent initiatives such as the Trailblazer Series and the MLB Grit invitational for girls and young women playing baseball have also proved successful. The World Baseball Classic displays some of the best talent that the sport has to offer. The players on the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico teams, in particular, display emotions that would get them raked over the coals in MLB, and their fans give back the same energy in response — just watch footage from the most recent WBC in Miami. It’s as though playing away from the restrictions of the mostly-White infrastructure of the sport allowed players to be themselves, and the joy of that freedom was written all over their faces. That exuberance hasn’t yet become acceptable in MLB, which doesn’t bode well for the future of this league. Broken Promise: You can’t grow the game without planting roots. Real roots. Not through programs, but getting kids to play the sport without connecting it to a league, or a tournament of some sort of All-Star squad of draft-worthy talent. What helped “grow the game” in the 20th century wasn’t just the players or the way the game was played. It was also kids playing pickup baseball in city parks, playgrounds and sandlots across the continental United States. I come from the generation of Americans that was probably the last to play pick-up baseball. Bringing our bats and gloves to a playground with bases drawn in chalk was a staple of my childhood. Who does that today? Part of the popularity of football — other than it being the most TV-friendly sport, with your team showing up once a week like it’s a church service — is that people play it away from rules and regulations and for an hour or two pretend to be the players they admire. One could just look at Bobbito Garcia’s “Doin’ It In The Park” documentary to see what makes basketball thrive. The price of entry is too expensive to play baseball in the 21st century — just ask Andrew McCutchen. And with MLB’s desire to eliminate dozens of minor league teams to make its operations more “cost-effective,” they’re just cutting off people’s access to the sport, limiting the opportunity for exposure and interest. The powers that be at MLB have a really interesting take on “growing the game.” Keep all of these things in mind as MLB attempts to streamline and consolidate operations. From the manufacturing of the balls themselves to questionable practices in Latin America that they refuse to tackle, it’s enough to make even the biggest baseball fan consider giving up. If they don’t love the sport, why should you? References & Resources Let The Kids Play 2.0 (YouTube/MLB) Rewrite The Rules (YouTube/MLB) More Bat Flips/Bat Drops From 2019! (YouTube/MLB) Myles Garret and Mason Rudolph: Meet Juan Marichal and John Roseboro (Craig Calcaterra) The Challenges For Rob Manfred, Now That He’s Been Extended As MLB Commissioner (Maury Brown) Benches clear, managers brawl after bat flip retaliation during White Sox-Royals (Cassandra Negley) Sources: Anderson’s ban is for epithet, no bat flip (Jeff Passan) What Chris Sale and Rick Porcello had to say about the MLB bat flip controversy (Mark Dunphy) Four HBCU teams playing in unique MLB-sponsored tournament in New Orleans (John X. Miller)