Commentary: Baseball’s Outdated Views Must Be Left in the Past
It’s no secret that Major League Baseball has an image problem, mainly because it’s had the same problem for decades now. While its rival sports leagues have been effective at evolving and marketing their games to gain new fans and capture the attention of younger audiences, this has been an area where MLB has continued to struggle. As a result, their fan base has become increasingly older and less diverse, and they have lost considerable ground to sports like basketball and football in the War for Attention.
But while I could write a whole other article about baseball’s demographic problem (and how playing 20 Roman ads per game isn’t helping them gain new fans), I want to focus this article on why MLB is having a hard time connecting with younger and more diverse audiences. In this regard, there are many factors at play, but there are two key problems that play a central role in these outcomes.
For one thing, many in the baseball community have been completely unwilling to move past the old-school thinking and “unwritten rules” that have been ingrained into them, something that has caused a huge disconnect between those inside and outside of the game. Second, while they certainly try to say the right things when it comes to supporting minority groups in the game, MLB and its representatives have consistently fallen short in displaying the values they claim to uphold.
To their credit, MLB has taken some baby steps in the right direction on these issues in recent years: making investments in youth baseball, pushing their “Let the Kids Play” marketing campaign, creating more player-centric media, and implementing more diversity initiatives within MLB and across baseball. However, MLB still has a long way to go when it comes to addressing these problems, something that has become painfully obvious over the course of this week.
It all started on Monday night, in the Rangers’ brand-new stadium in Arlington. At the time, the Padres were up seven in a game that basically everyone had stopped caring about. That was, until Fernando Tatís Jr. gave them something to care about. With the bases loaded and a 3-0 count, Tatís had the gall, the absolute audacity, to not only swing at a bad pitch in the zone, but hit it over the fence. In doing so, he broke a time-honored and hallowed unwritten rule of the game: you don’t swing at a 3-0 pitch when you’re up by a lot. It was a truly egregious act, the most scandalous thing a player could ever do and something Tatís should be eternally ashamed of…
At least, that’s what some people in the game would have you believe.
The rest of us were left to sit and wonder what exactly Tatís did wrong in this situation. What did he actually do that warranted him to publicly apologize, his teammates to intervene, and his own manager to rebuke him in front of the media? Isn’t the organization literally paying him to deposit pitches like that into the seats? Frankly, it’s not even that reasonable to be upset with him for not looking at the take sign. If there’s anyone that should have a green light on 3-0, it should be a player like Tatís--especially in a situation where he can do some serious damage.
Of course, many will argue that the timing was the real issue--that he shouldn’t have been trying to do that when his team was already up seven. However, these same people wouldn’t be griping nearly as much if he had grounded out or hit a pop up in this situation. At the end of the day, all the arguments boil down to some variation of “he hit a home run, and it offended me”, which is generally a bizarre and nonsensical argument for a baseball fan to make (see why non-baseball fans might be turned off by this kind of behavior?). Nonetheless, a single pitch turned into a week-long scandal, and we all had to deal with the fallout.
Now, I could spend a few hours dunking on these arguments and laughing at the concepts behind some of these unwritten rules, but so many people have done that already that I would just sound like a broken record (if you do want a good breakdown, I recommend this episode of Baseball BBQ). In fact, it seems like Tatís’s supporters have generally exceeded his detractors, especially on social media. But the key issue isn’t the number of detractors, but rather who they tend to be.
It’s the fact that his own manager forced him to apologize and ripped him for his decisions at the post-game press conference. It’s the fact that “old-school,” prominent players like Eric Hosmer tried to chastise him in the dugout afterward. Perhaps most importantly, it’s the talking heads on MLB’s own network spending hours of airtime to explain why Tatis was wrong - namely the long-time radio hosts, old-school baseball writers, and former players who think of themselves as the guardians of the game.
Now, of course, I’m not saying all of the former stars of the game are obsessed with the unwritten rules, and not all of the anchors on MLB Network were critical of Tatís’s homer. In fact, there were quite few from both groups who came to his defense. What I am saying is that it’s an incredible double standard for MLB to say “let the kids play” while simultaneously paying Chris Russo to berate them for doing so on his show every day. You can’t continue to criticize players for doing fun and exciting things on the field and then wonder why no one thinks the game is fun or exciting. Eventually, MLB is going to have to stand firmly on one side or the other, because to straddle the fence means actively handicapping themselves.
That being said, if this was the extent of MLB’s scandals this week, it wouldn’t have been a total disaster for them. Sure, the Tatis issue brought a lot of bad PR to the game and may have turned off a lot of potential fans, but it wasn’t a disaster--just another reminder of the continued influence of Baseball’s Old Guard. But unfortunately, another instance of outdated views tainting the game would happen just a few days later, and this one would be much more serious.
As I am sure you are aware of by now, Reds broadcaster Thom Brennaman was caught using a homophobic slur on the air during the intermission of Cincinnati’s doubleheader on Wednesday.
Again, I don’t want to pile on to the massive heap of criticism already out there, because we all know how disgusting and unacceptable his comments were, and I would just be repeating things that other, better writers have already said. Here, I want to focus specifically on Brennaman’s apology, and what it says about MLB’s general approach to these kinds of issues. When he was eventually taken off the air that afternoon, Brennaman signed off with this statement:
“I made a comment earlier tonight that I guess went out over the air that I am deeply ashamed of. If I have hurt anyone out there, I can’t tell you how much I say, from the bottom of my heart, I’m so very, very sorry. I pride myself and think of myself as a man of faith...” - he stops here to call a Nicholas Castellanos home run - "...I don't know if I'm going to be putting on this headset again. I don't know if it's going to be for the Reds. I don't know if it's going to be for my bosses at Fox. I want to apologize for the people who sign my paycheck, for the Reds, for Fox Sports Ohio, for the people I work with, for anybody that I've offended here tonight. I can’t begin to tell you how deeply sorry I am. That is not who I am, it never has been. And I’d like to think maybe I could have some people that could back that up."
Possibly the best word that can describe this apology is “apathetic”. Between the utter lack of emotion in his voice, the fact that he apologized to his employers and not the LGBTQ community, and the fact that he called a home run in the middle of his apology, Brennaman’s statement came off as bland, ignorant, and completely ingenuine.
The “man of faith” line is perhaps the most telling about what Brennaman is actually trying to accomplish here: he doesn’t actually care about the people he’s hurt, he’s just trying to gain pity for himself. Being a “man of faith” does not mean that you don’t hold awful beliefs about people who are different than you. In fact, given religion’s long history regarding homosexuality, it makes it even more likely that this isn’t the first time he’s used that word in a derogatory context. But by mentioning his “faith”, what he’s really trying to say is “Hey, I’m a good guy, I don’t deserve to be punished for doing something objectively terrible.” What he is really sorry about is getting caught, because getting caught means having to be held accountable for his actions.
Now, speaking of holding people accountable, this probably would have been a good time for the Reds (and MLB as a whole) to actually take a meaningful stand against this kind of hateful language and try to show some solidarity with the LGBTQ+ community. But instead of that, we got a one-paragraph statement from the Reds that was about as sterile and corporate as can be:
“The Cincinnati Reds organization is devastated by the horrific, homophobic remark made this evening by broadcaster Thom Brennaman. He was pulled off the air, and effective immediately was suspended from doing Reds broadcasts. We will be addressing our broadcasting team in the coming days. In no way does this incident represent our players, coaches, organization, or our fans. We share our sincerest apologies to the LGBTQ+ community in Cincinnati, Kansas City, all across this country, and beyond. The Reds embrace a zero-tolerance policy for bias or discrimination of any kind, and we are truly sorry to anyone who has been offended.”
This has been the only statement offered by both the Reds and MLB on the subject, which is frustrating enough. But to top it all off, Brennaman wasn’t even fired from his role, just vaguely “suspended.” So much for “zero-tolerance,” I guess.
But for MLB, this level of minimal effort is nothing new. Whether they are reacting to homophobic remarks like Brennaman’s, the ongoing protests against the police’s treatment of Black people, or their players committing acts of domestic violence, their response usually entails putting out a short statement like the one above and making an empty gesture toward the affected group (I would not be surprised if they push for more Pride-themed nights at the ballpark next season).
We need to call it like it is: MLB doesn’t actually care about things like diversity and inclusion, they just simply want to appear as if they do. With their platform, they could be doing so much more to root out bigotry within their organization, stand up for marginalized people, and advance national conversations about these important issues. Instead, they do the bare minimum and expect to be patted on the back for it. In other words, it’s one thing for MLB to say that they’re against homophobia, racism, and violence against women, but without subsequent action to address those issues, their statements are ultimately a bunch of empty words. And empty words are quite easy for people to see through.
Which brings us to the key issue at hand here: if MLB is serious about creating a legitimately welcoming environment for fans, players, employees, and members of the media from all backgrounds, they have to actually go through the work of understanding these communities and taking their criticisms seriously instead of just doing the bare minimum to appease them without rocking the boat.
For example, you can’t claim to support women in the game while your teams employ domestic abusers and their employees brag about hiring them to female reporters. As Kevin Blackistone points out, you also can’t properly acknowledge the history of the Negro Leagues and Black people’s contributions to the game without also acknowledging the history of why the Negro Leagues existed in the first place. And, as Ginny Searle notes in her article on Brennaman (which I highly suggest you read if you haven’t already), MLB’s “support” of the LGBTQ+ community ultimately rings hollow when homophobic comments from players and broadcasters repeatedly come to the forefront and the league’s only known gay player, Glenn Burke, was ultimately forced out of the game because he was gay.
Of course, in saying this, I also have to acknowledge my own privilege. After all, I am just another white man in sports media, and I know that there will be some people who will dismiss my criticisms on that fact alone. Frankly, I don’t necessarily blame them. I can’t speak for the experiences of these groups because I never had to go through them myself. But what I can do is try to foster an environment in the game that is more welcoming and understanding of these groups, and the first step in that is to acknowledge MLB’s lack of meaningful action and outreach so that we can start to fix it.
If there is one thing that I want people to take away from this article, it’s this: if MLB actually wants to grow baseball and its community in the way they say they do, then the representatives of the game are going to have to think a lot more critically and objectively about the way that they present the game and how welcoming of an environment they are creating for people of all backgrounds. And by “representatives of the game,” I specifically mean the ones that look like me.
Ultimately, the only way to bring baseball into the future is for MLB to finally do the work of unrooting old and outdated lines of thinking from the sport--whether it be something as trivial as tearing up the unwritten rules or something as important as taking a meaningful stand against homophobia. The time for empty words is over, now is a time for action.
If you are interested in learning more about how you can better support the LGBTQ+ community and the organizations that advocate for them, this website is an excellent resource to get started.