Why MLB Thinks You're Stupid

Baseball is a pretty awesome game. The sport has a major impact on local economies, underdeveloped nations, and its athletes should be paid a lot of money. OK. With that out of the way, let’s get to what this article is really about: Major League Baseball is a cartel that rips you off, laughs in your face, and doesn't care about anything but your wallet. Why? Because Major League Baseball Thinks You’re Stupid. Read on to find out exactly why MLB thinks you're so dim.

Because They Can Play You

The Ricketts family owns the Chicago Cubs. They're a group of real-life Billy Madisons who bought a baseball team to prove something to their billionaire dad. Tom is the bumbling, pathetic figurehead—pretty much by default—and runs the team, rather appropriately, like a rich kid that's been handed everything. Meaning, he's both the wealthiest and least respected person in every room he's standing in.

Since taking over the team in 2010, the ownership group has begged the city of Chicago for $200M to "modernize" Wrigley Field. So, even if you don't care for the team, or the sport, as a taxpayer you're saddled with financing a (supposedly) private empire. Why? So the owners aren't hassled with the upkeep of their own personal money-printing-factory. If you haven't puked on your keyboard yet, the New York Times reported that Joe Ricketts (the aforementioned "billionaire dad") planned to drop $10M on an ad campaign against "government spending." In other words, the patriarch of the Ricketts clan is really against government handouts—unless, of course, that check is cut to his millionaire kids.

In the Ricketts' first two years as team owners, the Cubs have been all of 146-178. This year they're in last place and still have the second highest average ticket price in baseball ($108.70). When they're not passing the operating costs of their own business on to the City of Chicago, they're gouging their fans. And for what? The privilege of watching Carlos Marmol pepper sliders off of the backstop for the league's worst team. It's disgusting, totally unsustainable, and exactly why Ricketts bought the Cubs—they sell out every game regardless of record.

Because They Can Steal From You

You don't have to leave Chicago to find another example of big-business baseball tapping the public for free stuff. In 1988 White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf issued the city an ultimatum: Build us a new stadium or we'll move to St. Petersburg. Chicago caved to the threat and built the brand-new $167M Comiskey Park. Once again—even if you hate the sport—money is pulled out of your check so that fabulously wealthy people can get even richer. If you do like the sport, you get the White Sox which sucks almost as much.

The same story has played out recently in Washington where the city whored itself out for $611M to host the Nationals. The Pirates only paid $40M for their $230M stadium. Now, they use PNC Park to lose on purpose and turn a healthy profit because of it. And in Cincinnati, where one-in-seven people live below the poverty line, Hamilton County divvied out close to $300M to the Reds the Great American Ballpark.

But perhaps the most egregious misuse of taxpayer money, well, ever, is the newly constructed Marlins Park in Miami. Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria (estimated net worth of $500M) conned Dade County out of over $350M while, simultaneously, concealing $50M in profits. The already destitute city was forced to take some hair-raising loans including a $91M loan from JP Morgan with a 13-year deferred payment that will cost tax payers some $1.2B to pay off. You read that right, the city will pay over a billion dollars to borrow $91M.

Loria is worth hundreds of millions of dollars and could have covered the costs with the liquidity of his own pocket. Instead, he rips off the people of Miami, presides over the largest ticket price increase in baseball, and charges $8 for a stadium beer. He’ll fund less than twenty-five-percent of the stadium and keep one-hundred-percent of the profits. Dade County cut 1200 jobs, their Mayor was recalled in the wake of the scandal, and the city is under investigation by the SEC. Meanwhile, Loria brags about his "state of the art" stadium with its 40-foot aquarium behind home plate and $2.5M mechanical Marlin sculpture. Loria will get insanely wealthy wealthier for doing worse than nothing, and a generation of Floridians have been sold out for it.

Because They Can Lie To You

And all the while commissioner Bud Selig beats his chest like an asthmatic, virgin King Kong for residing over "the most profitable era in the history of baseball." Nice. In addition to robbing the fans, Selig has also destroyed the game. Revenue sharing and the luxury tax have done little to level the playing field, and if anything, have made the competitive balance worse. Losing, small market teams have no incentive to win because they're bankrolled by the league's Goliaths to get their brains beat in. For those teams, investing in personnel is a bad business decision. As a result, the correlation between revenue and winning is more direct in baseball than in any other sport.

So, unless you're a fan of a major market team (or, rather miraculously, the Rays) you'll root for a perpetual loser. That loser will still charge you $40 for a ticket, $5.50 for a cold hot dog, and if you wear your Rockies hat to Dodger Stadium, you're liable to get pistol whipped in the parking lot. Rooting for the Blue Jays, Royals, or Mariners is hopeless. Those teams exist to cultivate prospects, turn them into stars, and then, hand them over to the Phillies or Yankees.

Last year Moneyball(a film about the 2002 Oakland Athletics) painted the team and general manager Billy Beane as the scrappy, creative anti-Yankees. The story gave hope to the notion that small market teams could compete as long as they were creative and willing enough to do so. In reality, the A’s won a division title behind three pitchers they were lucky enough to draft and a shortstop on steroids that won an MVP. A more fitting film for the current A’s would be Major League, a movie about a team trying to lose, kill off their fan base, and move to another city. It’s an example of the unjustified Hollywood romanticism that baseball is built on. It's all a fraud, really.

Because They Can Laugh At You

Then, if you stop showing up, you have dipshits like Chris Perez call you out. The Indians closer, who will make $4.5M this summer to bounce sliders and lose his job to Vinnie Pastrano, said last week, "Nobody wants to play in front of 5,000 people" in reference to low attendance at Progressive Field, "it's a slap in the face." In recession-trampled Cleveland, the Indians raised their ticket prices this season. It costs (on average) $175 for a family of four to attend a game. The team is 214-272 over the last three seasons and hasn't won a World Series since 1948. If Perez feels like he's been slapped in the face, Indians fans should feel like they've had their balls kicked through their throats.

So, why show up? Baseball's a low-scoring game. There's no clock and, on average, there's twenty-six seconds of guys dicking around between pitches. The only way to get through a live game is to get totally faded. You'd think that in a league with a team called the "Brewers" and stadiums named for "Miller" and "Coors," the one place you'd catch a break is on the cost of a beer. Nope.

The St. Louis Cardinals play in Busch Stadium, which is literally down the street from a Budweiser brewery. The clubs still has the balls to charge $7 per sud. Boston fans, in addition to being charged the denominationally inconvenient $7.25, are also limited to twelve ounces at a time. And the only thing the Miami Marlins lead baseball in is robbing their fans at $8 per cerveza! There's really no limit to what these clubs will do to screw you over, and Chris Perez wonders why the stadium's empty.

They Can Blame You For Their Mistakes

Baseball used to be a game of juiced-out sluggers putting up unrealistic numbers and driving demand for their production. Monster contracts were paid to Alex Rodriguez, Manny Ramirez, and Jason Giambi whose phony price tags were based on their shoving syringes in their asses and crushing home run balls. Those contracts opened the flood gates for guys like Albert Pujols, Mark Texiera, and Johan Santana who (to no fault of their own) cashed in on baseball's corrupt era.

The costs of those contracts are passed on to the fans who now watch bad players at an inflated price. During the steroid era, at least, you had Barry Bonds smashing homers into McCovey and Ken Caminiti firing balls at the speed of sound across the infield. Now, you have Alfonso Soriano fouling-out every at bat and Barry Zito hanging 65-mph curve balls and you actually pay more for it.

Albert Pujols signed a 10-year-$254M deal this winter and will make a bonkers $30M in 2021 (when he's 41-years-old). Because of a "personal services" agreement Pujols will receive $1M a year for a decade after his retirement. That means a Halos fan born today will pay for Albert Pujols through their freshman year of college. The Angels have mortgaged their franchise on the immediate success of a team that, at the moment, is under .500. It's a gamble made by GM Jerry Dipoto who, if it doesn't work out, will still be rich. If Albert Pujols permanently forgets how to play baseball he will still be filthy rich. If the team never wins another game, owner Arte Moreno will be insanely rich. So, what's at stake for them? Nothing, really.

Because You Are Stupid

MLB's business model is based on monopolizing baseless loyalty to market a game where grown men play in the dirt and scratch themselves for three-and-a-half-hours. Blowhards like George Will and Billy Crystal can evangelize about "the beauty of the game," but that’s really what it boils down to. You exist to pay player salaries and feed the ego of billionaires who own teams. And for what? So they can work six months a year, bang the hottest girls on Earth, and retire at thirty-five-years-old.

If you look at the price of concessions, tickets, and officially licensed team apparel, it should read like a giant "fuck you" because that's what it is. The only power you really have as a fan is to stop showing up. You know it. Baseball knows it. And that's why nothing will change.