How much is enough for MLB?
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- March
- 8
Major League Baseball very badly needs a Vice President of Common Sense. Check out this story from the Cape Cod Times in Massachusetts.
It seems that MLB is forcing amateur summer league teams that use MLB nicknames (like the Chatham A’s of the Cape Cod League) to purchase their uniforms and souvenirs from MLB-approved (meaning more expensive) vendors. If not, MLB will withdraw whatever funding it gives the league. In the case of the Cape League, we’re talking $100,000. That’s a huge chunk of their $1.5 million budget.
Many New Yorkers spend their summers on the Cape and have watched Cape League games. It’s baseball heaven as top-notch college players play wood-bat games that you can watch for free. A large percentage of drafted college players pass through the Cape League. Ross Ohlendorf, for instance, played there.
What’s next, going after Little League teams? There are a lot of good people who work for MLB. Hopefully one of them urges whoever is behind this to come to their senses.
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on Saturday, March 8th, 2008 at 12:17 am by Peter Abraham.
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Peter Abraham
I guess the 6+ billion dollars baseball made last season has to come from somewhere. Maybe this is the reason the Yank’s couldn’t fork over the extra $600,000 for Wang or the Red Sox couldn’t pay Paplebon all the money he was whining about. Nevermind that the Yankees are wasting much more money on flops like Pavano and Igawa, the Giants on Zito, etc etc ad naseum.
Oh MLB, I love you, but I hate you at the same time. Get over yourself so I can enjoy watching a ballgame. This is ridiculous.
As silly as it may seem, depending on their agreements, MLB may actually be legally required to defend their registered trademarks and those of its teams. Under current trademark laws, if a trademark owner (in this case MLB) does nothing and allows its trademarks to be used by someone else, it will be deemed to have acquiesced their trademark rights to that individual/group. If there are enough acquieses, it can be deemed abandoned and reverts back to the general public. In that case, anyone could use the trademarks without penalty. I’m not exactly sure what agreements MLB and the Cape League had in place beforehand. But as stupid as it may seem, MLB is doing what they have to do to cover their bases and ensure the protection of their valuable trademarks.
Phil, I couldn’t agree with you more. This is a joke.
Pete—
I played little league about 6-11 years ago. When we played, we had the Yankees, Mets, Orioles, Cardinals, etc. Now, since I’ve grown out of it, my old league has changed the teams to “New York Bombers,” and “California Cruisers” and names like that, since MLB started charging more for the naming rights.
Do the Cape Cod teams have to be named after MLB teams? If not, then can’t they just rename themselves things like the B’s, the Magenta Socks, the Robins, the Trout, the Wildebeests, the Know-Nothings, the Bull Moose, the Free Soilers…
(I know. Shut up and go to sleep.)
That’s the best solution, Dan… just come up with names MLB can’t complain about. Although you’d have to wonder, will they extend their grab to include minor league team names, too?
My Little League had teams with names sponsored by local businesses, so you’d say you played for Fette Ford or Bunny’s Pub or whatever. There’s also a team in Hoboken called the Young Democrats.
I think those names are a lot better than using MLB names, anyway. Imagine my horror if my kid got assigned to the Red Sox. Blech!
Jennifer: I don’t know if you’re in here somewhere still, but if you are, I used to have the same problem with getting spam sent as text messages to my phone I just called the cell phone company and they blocked them. It was absolutely no problem. You should try that before you do anything a website says!
I was about to say what Dan said. Kids in little league were always upset when they got shoved on the Pirates anyway, right?
There were actually a couple types of little league by me. There were the Yankees, Pirates, Red Sox kind, and then there was the Tommy A’s Place, F&J’s Pizza kind. I kind of preferred the place where the kids wore t-shirts with the pizza place or name of the bar. Seemed more home-y.
What, you thought Bud Selig would be satisfied stealing Mr. Steinbrenner’s money alone?
How did he get that nickname, Bud, anyway?
The lead story on PTI this evening was about certain Yankees (e.g. Farnsworth) talking trash about Torre.
I figured I’d hit the Lohud Blog for the full scoop … and not a word?
MK
You need to pay better attention MK. It was the first post of the day yesterday.
http://yankees.lhblogs.com/2008/03/07/today-in-the-journal-news-212/
How greedy can major league baseball get!! These are the feeder leagues that produce future major leagers. They are are so imortant in getting the youth involved with baseball. These minor league owners are not making alot of profits. Lets give them a break.
http://www.recreateyourlifenow.com
VP of Common Sense…Pete, do you read Bill Simmons (The Sports Guy) on ESPN.com? He proposed the same thing for the NBA. There needs to be one in each league.
The easiest thing for these teams to do is to change their names, or tweak them a bit. Initially, it will cost them something to re-do or re-purchase uniform shirts, but it seems it would be a lot less costly than having to buy the MLB-sanctioned unis and souvenirs and a lot less than losing all thea funding.
I don’t know the legal ins and outs here, but this would be a very shortsighted move from the stand point of major league baseball’s own best interest with regards to player development and baseball economics.
The reason why – the Cape Cod League is one of the few places where amateur prospects play the game with wood bats. The use of wood bats is one of the reason why the Cape Cod league is such a major stop in evaluating college prospects.
The baseball draft is notorious for being like throwing darts at a board. Prospects that seem like can’t misses miss all the time. Of a draft with over 40 rounds, many teams don’t select any players that become productive major leaguers.
There’s a lot of reasons for this. But one of the things that makes projecting amateur baseball prospects at both the college and high school level is the widespread use of aluminum bats.
Many hitters, often unconsciously, wind up tailoring their swings to take advantage of the extra pop you get with an aluminum bat. Scouts have to guess how hitters will fair when they switch to wood bats in the pros.
Similarly, wood bats have a big impact on how amateur pitchers throw. For instance, at the big league level we often lament as to how few pitchers are willing to throw on the inside part of the plate. Part of the reason why that is is because these kids growing up always face aluminum bats. Aluminum bats help you protect the inside of the plate and allow you to swing later while hitting the ball farther.
This issue of bats is one of the bigger differences between high school/ college ball and pro ball.
It would be like allowing high school/ college basketball players to use a smaller size ball and needing to project how their jump shot would be in the pros with a larger ball.
This problem gets bigger as the players get older. Many hitters in college are physically mature – this makes it easier for them to leverage the extra pop from aluminum and makes it harder for pitchers to pitch aggressively.
A case in point for this is a guy the yankees just drafted. Brad Suttle was a guy the yankees drafted this year – was considered by many to be one of the better pure hitters in college. The yankees’ gave him a $1.4 million dollar bonus. One concern people had with him that led him to drop in the draft was his poor performance in the cape cod league. There could be a lot of reasons why Suttle didn’t do well but some people thought it was because his swing was tailored to an aluminum bat. In Winter ball Suttle was awful – he hit .100. One of the big things suttle has to prove this year is that he can hit with a wood bat.
So why don’t amateur leagues/ colleges use wood bats. It’s just money. Wood bats crack. Aluminum doesn’t, making them cheaper over time.
I’d guess that a good part of that money MLB gives to the cape cod league goes to buying wood bats.
If they stop funding the cape cod league it would be a shame for many reasons. But if the league has to switch to aluminum bats (don’t know if they would) then MLB will lose one of its best opportunities to evaluate college prospects in the setting closes to the way the pro game is played.
These days its the college prospects that tend to go higher in the draft and get the larger signing bonuses.
MLB will be shooting itself in the foot if this happens.
I spend many a summer as a young kid going to Hyannis Mets games and it would be sad to see them have to change their names over something so stupid. Come on MLB, put your efforts into the bigger issues
The Yankees raised my season ticket price by 47%. MLB/Yankees or any business will get away with as much as they can.
MLB is so greedy. this alone should cause Congress to remove the anti-trust exemption.
I don’t expect it to happen, but i’d like to see Congress tell MLB that it only gets to keep the antitrust exemption if there’s a ticket price cap. otherwise, why does MLB deserve special gov’t treatment?
As a summer resident of Eastham Ma.I and my family have enjoyed watching the Cape League Orleans Cardinals,(my daughter worked for them one summer and it was a great experience) and their many many stars…...Nomar Garciaparra,Frank Thomas,Jay Payton,Aaron Boone,Todd Helton….and a gaggle of also rans, too numerous to list.I fear they will be forced to charge admission to the games if ML and the Ocean Spray cranberry co. find it fiscally difficult to subsidize the League.