The Out in Left Weekly: March 10, 2024

Nick Castellanos/God, unions, and more

Nick Castellanos, 2022 NLDS. (The Libery Line)

MLB news

Nick Castellanos for president (of the MLBPA)

Phillies outfielder Nick Castellanos is all of us, as I wrote last May, and he further proved that last week in comments to Sports Illustrated about MLB’s new uniform debacle:

The problem is that lawyers and businessmen think us young athletes are stupid. So they just tell us whatever and they expect us to believe it, and that’s kind of unfortunate, because it’s not that we’re stupid. We just didn’t go to law school and don’t know how to negotiate business deals. That doesn’t mean that we’re not intelligent. We know when we’re being lied to. Just say straight up, ‘Listen, we wanted to save some money here. This is how much we’re saving with this quality of uniform. An old uniform and the old stitching cost us this much, and we’re saving this amount of money.’ And then our next conversation would be, ‘O.K., if you’re saving that much money, where are you putting it into the game?’

The whole quote could be Out in Left’s Book of Genesis, but it’s the last sentence that resonates most. We’re paying more for everything these days, but it seems we get less value for our money than ever. That’s especially true for baseball fans.

A Bud Light at Petco Park costs $14, which should be illegal, and to watch baseball I subscribe to MLB.TV, YouTube TV, Peacock, and Apple TV+. I still can’t get a reliable stream of Phillies spring training games, and I won’t be able to watch the Padres at my apartment in San Diego unless I buy the team’s dedicated stream. 

Along those lines, Phillies fans are mourning the demise of Dollar Dog Night at Citizens Bank Park. Team officials blamed the fans’ unruly behavior for the switch to buy one, get one hot dogs, but I can’t help but think this is about revenue. Over 58,000 hot dogs were sold at the last Dollar Dog Night, and by instituting a $5 BOGO deal the Phillies stand to make almost $100,000 more per promotion. Will that revenue be used to pay gameday workers more? Improve the quality of hot dogs? Lower ticket prices? Or even help sign one of the top free agent pitchers still on the market? Answers: Ha, ha, ha, and ha.

I’m fine with paying more for something if that results in further investment in the thing, but just like my president Nick Castellanos, us mortals are not stupid. We know in the current era of inflation, greedflation, and shrinkflation when we’re getting sold a bill of goods.

MLB executives use every marketing term in the book to explain away higher prices, and they spin their complicated, expensive TV product as a positive thing for fans. Nike, who designed MLB’s new uniforms, and Fanatics, who manufactured them, are pointing at each other like two children caught in a slap fight by their parents. Our capitalist overlords, who patronize us with obfuscating corporate-speak, apparently aren’t smart enough to use the simplest, most effective tool at their disposal: the truth.

Baseball players should be YIMBYs

In his Cup of Coffee newsletter, Craig Calcaterra highlighted an article in The Athletic about how MLB players find places to live. It’s one of those offbeat stories that emerge during spring training, but Calcaterra makes a salient point about the lengths to which journeymen players go to secure homes. “This could all be avoided,” he writes, “if we returned to the days of the residential hotel.”

Calcaterra explains how zoning changes and gentrification banished single-room occupancy buildings (SROs) at the lower end and extended-stay hotels at the higher end. Now, there are few temporary and affordable residences available for itinerant workers at all income levels. In San Diego, for example, thousands of SROs have been demolished or upscaled since the 1980s, and homelessness has never been more pervasive.

Some corners of our society tell the indigent or the itinerant to get a job, but they often are employed. It’s just that their incomes don’t afford them what we now call short-term vacation rentals, or they don’t have the job security or upfront cash needed to enter long-term leases. There’s literally nowhere to go. 

Housing costs have been a driver of inflation in recent years, but housing is one policy area in which people across the political spectrum deny the relationship between supply and demand, regardless of what data show. New apartment supply is the highest it's been in decades. At the same time, rents in many metro areas are moderating, with Minneapolis the most successful in controlling rent growth after it made it easier and faster to build more homes in more places. 

For all our chest-thumping about free markets, we Americans cling to paternalistic zoning and planning practices that strangle the life out of cities. We must let people build the things we need.

Spring training interviews are the best

Most spring training telecasts fill time with dugout interviews. I love them and they’re (almost) reason enough to sit through nine innings of exhibition baseball. In the relaxed atmosphere of spring training, and with the camera and interviewers at a distance, star players are unguarded and they often dispense with platitudes and cliches. It turns out these guys have personalities.

Other news

Domonique Foxworth for president (of the United States)

ESPN’s Domonique Foxworth caused a minor controversy by saying on the Ross Tucker Football Podcast that the NFL’s salary cap, franchise tag, and draft are un-American. He also argued that they violate antitrust laws, though Foxworth pointed to the NFL Players Association—the weakest of the major sports unions—as being partly responsible for entrenching the NFL’s labor practices. 

I agree with the sentiment, but I think Foxworth is technically incorrect. The United States has a long history of immorally or illegally suppressing labor costs. It’s an enduring American characteristic. 

It shouldn’t be, of course, and as a former NFL player and executive at both the NFLPA and National Basketball Players Association Foxworth is uniquely qualified to opine on the topic. He was also an Army brat and holds an MBA from Harvard. As a media personality, he’s adept at communicating to a broad audience. His is a powerful voice. I don’t know if he has political ambitions, but I hope he does.

Dartmouth men’s basketball team votes to unionize

Though it will take months, if not years to resolve the legalities, the Dartmouth men’s basketball team voting to unionize last week is a watershed moment for both the labor movement and the movement against the NCAA’s amateurism model. In a statement, Dartmouth said, “Classifying these students as employees simply because they play basketball is as unprecedented as it is inaccurate.”

Don’t be like Dartmouth. If you are responsible for people’s health, welfare, and education, then don’t refer to them as these people and strive to continue exploiting their free labor.

Recommendations

• Because my friend Miles Spatola is one of the behind-the-scenes workers that makes show business possible and he produces a fantastic football podcast for ESPN and Omaha Productions: This is Football with Kevin Clark (link)

• Because my friend John Gonzalez enriched/ruined my life by roping me into a hyper competitive fantasy basketball keeper league and he hosts a podcast launching tomorrow for CBS Sports: Beyond the Arc: A Daily NBA Show from CBS Sports (link)

• Because there should be more sports teams that are unafraid to stand for something: “How a Small-Time Soccer Team Draws a Crowd: With Its Activism,” by Rory Smith for The New York Times (link)