At the 2003 SABR national convention, SABR launched a survey about the future of baseball.1 SABR members as well as members of the general public were invited to respond. The instructions given to the respondents read as follows: “Answer the questions in light of what you believe will be true in 2020, not what you wish would be true, except where noted.” The questions were mostly focused on Major League Baseball and included topics like new franchises, Hall of Fame inductees, and who would still be playing in 2020. (As a Dodgers fan, I am proud to say Pujols was identified correctly.) Inspired by the survey, for this year’s issue of The National Pastime, we decided to run a similar survey and ask SABR members once again to look two decades into the future.

The Future According to Baseball survey invited respondents to answer 16 questions about baseball 20 years in the future, framed by the following understanding: “[T]hat just as baseball, and its history, is a reflection on culture and society in the past and present, it could also be an input, context, and/or predictor for predicting plausible futures of the United States and other countries.” The goal became to predict what the world might be like in 2040, and how that will be reflected in the game we love.

Table 1 displays the questions and the top choice answer from each question.

(Click image to enlarge)

Some issues, which seemed far in the future when the survey was taken in 2020, have already become reality by the summer of 2021: the minor leagues have been contracted by fiat, and experiments with using a greater distance from the mound to the plate are taking place this season in the Atlantic League. The future sometimes arrives faster than expected.

EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES

What would a discussion of the future be like without exploring emerging technologies? To take a deep dive into the question of emerging technologies on the survey, we asked respondents to choose all the emerging technologies they felt would have impact on baseball. We provided respondents with the following definitions:

Virtual Reality: Provides a computer-generated 3D environment (including both computer graphics and 360-degree video) that surrounds a user and responds to an individual’s actions in a natural way, usually through immersive head-mounted displays. Gesture recognition or handheld controllers provide hand and body tracking, and haptic (or touch-sensitive) feedback may be incorporated. Room-based systems provide a 3D experience while moving around large areas, or they can be used with multiple participants.

Augmented Reality: The real-time use of information in the form of text, graphics, audio and other virtual enhancements integrated with real-world objects. It is this “real world” element that differentiates AR from virtual reality. AR integrates and adds value to the user’s interaction with the real world, versus a simulation.

Exoskeleton: Exoskeletons are placed on the user’s body and act as amplifiers that augment, reinforce, or restore human performance. The opposite would be a mechanical prosthetic, such as a robotic arm or leg that replaces the original body part.

Digital Twins: A digital twin not only mirrors a unique individual, but is a near-real-time synchronized, multipresence of the individual in both digital and physical spaces. This digital instantiation (or multiple instantiations) of a physical individual continuously intertwines, updates, mediates, influences, and represents the person in multiple scenarios, experiences, circumstances, and personas.

Synthetic Materials: Man-made and cannot be found in nature. Synthetic materials are things like plastic that can be created by combining different chemicals, or prepared compounds and substances, in a laboratory.

Figure 1 displays the percentage of respondents that thought each emerging technology would impact baseball by 2040.

Figure 1. Emerging technologies that will have the most impact on Major League Baseball by 2040

(Click image to enlarge)

LOOKING AT 2040

These results, as well as the rest of the survey, have become the theme and roadmap for this edition of The National Pastime. The writers in this edition had one directive: create thought-provoking articles in a variety of disciplines, presenting the future through the lens of baseball. This edition includes research articles, flash fiction, short stories, and sci-fi prototypes in the form of press releases from the future, encompassing a wide variety of themes: Human Augmentation, The Metaverse: Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality, Climate and Globalization, Future Fan Experience, Rules Innovations, International Expansion, Women in Baseball, Future of Collectibles, and Emerging Technologies (Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain).

As we turn the clock ahead to 2040, baseball will continue to reflect what’s happening in the world around it. We hope you enjoy this tour of the future and take comfort in knowing that through all the many disruptions that will come over the next 20 years, we project that the game we know and love will prevail.

– Marty Resnick
July 2021

• Read online: Click here to read articles from The National Pastime 2021 online at SABR.org
• Download the e-book: Click here to download a free e-book edition of The National Pastime 2021
• Purchase the print edition: Click here to order the print edition of The National Pastime 2021 from Amazon.com

Notes

1. SABR treasurer F.X. Flinn presented the results of the 2003 survey as part of the 2020 SABR Virtual presentation series. To view the results of the 2003 survey, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjWdNhhnpOg&t=1973s beginning at the 32:53 mark.

The Kansas City Royals had so much fun on Turn Ahead the Clock Night, they decided to bring the promotion back for its 20th anniversary in 2018. Pictured here are (L) Whit Merrifield in 2018 and (R) Johnny Damon in 1998. (KANSAS CITY ROYALS)

Imagine you are sitting in a ballpark in the year 2040, and you are noting the uniforms of the two teams on the field. Can you imagine what baseball uniforms might look like twenty years from now?

For some perspective, let’s turn the clock back to the late 1990s, when what baseball clothes might look like in the future became more than just an idea. Baseball uniforms of the future became a hot topic thanks to “Turn Ahead the Clock Night.”1 Originating with the Seattle Mariners in 1998 as a one-night promotion, “Turn Ahead the Clock” went national in 1999 as a promotional gimmick between MLB and real estate company Century 21. Twenty-two of the 30 major league teams took part in the promotion by wearing their version of futuristic uniforms for one game. “We don’t know what 2021 will look like,” admitted Joe Billetdeaux, the Pirates director of merchandise. “We took a stab at it.”2 The results were not widely praised. The attempts at a futuristic look included jerseys with colors described as “blinding,”3 silver batting helmets, capped jersey sleeves, and jersey numbers and players’ names crawling vertically down the back.

A decade and a half earlier, the Mizuno Corporation of Osaka, Japan, had introduced their style of a futuristic uniform that focused on a baseball player’s needs. The one-piece uniforms were made from an all-weather polyurethane material—the same fabric used in ski outfits—and were designed to keep players warm on a chilly day or cool on a hot day. The major selling point of this uniform was the reinforced padding in areas where it was most needed. For example, an infielder’s uniform would have extra padding in the knee and shin areas to protect them from being spiked by a baserunner. The Mizuno style uniforms appeared to make an impression when unveiled in February of 1983, but because equipment and uniform changes had to be approved by the rules committee, it was said that it would be a while before these uniform would be in the major leagues; however, a Mizuno Corporation representative said he hoped to test the new uniforms during the current college baseball season.4 If the rules committee ever had their say or if college teams tried out the futuristic uniforms was never recorded.

So, if the far-fetched uniforms designed by the Mizuno corporation and the out-of-this-world style worn for the Century 21 promotion are unlikely to be adopted by Major League Baseball, what could we see the two teams wearing at that game we attend in 2040? Anne Occi, who was hired to start the MLB Properties design department in 1990 and became “MLB’s defacto chief marketing officer,”5 came to the job with ideas about what would influence baseball uniforms in the future. As part of her job, she subscribed to trend reports and color forecasts, paid attention to demographics, and listened closely when club management would tell her what kind of look they were looking for. “We know for a fact that the navies are starting to take over the popularity of black,” Occi said of the mid-1990s trends, “and there’s a switch from silver to gold metallic, and to less shiny metallic, such as bronze, and green is the color of the ’90s.”6 Occi recently retired after thirty years at MLB, but her successors will likely continue trying to predict color trends.7

Other factors could play a role in the baseball uniforms of 2040. According to author Marc Okkonen, night baseball inspired shiny satin material on game uniforms. Games televised in living color led to the rise of uniforms with bright colors and multiple color schemes. The popularity of America’s space program and putting men on the moon led to a fascination with the future and new trends in baseball uniforms in the Space Age. Some teams replaced traditional road grays with light blue, and button-down jerseys were replaced by pullovers. Teams like the Oakland A’s went so far as to replace traditional black cleats with white cleats. But that only lasted until nostalgia itself became a trend. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, perhaps inspired by the movie Field of Dreams, love of nostalgia blossomed, and baseball teams began to go back to gray road uniforms, old logos, and a traditional uniform look.

Events and milestones can also play a role, such as when every player in the American and National Leagues wore a sleeve patch in 1939 to honor the invention of baseball, or in 1918, when World War I inspired patriotic fervor and an abundance of flags and red-white-and-blue shield patches appearing on uniforms. In 1942, World War II inspired teams to wear a patriotic patch with the word, “Health.” Perhaps an event or milestone will inspire the jerseys you see at that game in 2040, or it could be something unimaginable for purists, like multiple patches. Perhaps individual uniforms will be spotted with patches like NASCAR drivers’ uniforms. This might sound outrageous, but who would have ever predicted that the White Sox would wear Bermuda shorts for three games during the 1976 season?

The thought of baseball uniforms becoming billboards might make you laugh, but you may have noticed that in the 2021 season the Nike logo sits visible on the chest of every major league player. The topic of advertising on the uniform was in discussion back in 1999. According to Chicago Tribune writer Chip Scoggins, “Major League Baseball [sic] and the Players’ Association are discussing a plan that would allow teams to sell 1-to-1 1/2-inch square patches containing a company’s logo.”8 The 1999 proposal was met with disdain from traditionalists—with pitcher Mike Mussina likening it to the Bad News Bears being sponsored by Chico’s Bail Bonds—and it went nowhere. But “for a cool $1 billion”—about $3 million per team—MLB did add the Nike swoosh in 2020, and it will stay there through the 2029 season.9 And the patch idea that was shelved in 1999? It was revived in 2019, with a tiny patch on the uniforms of the Yankees and Red Sox during their London Series, and is now being discussed between MLB and the players in advance of the next collective bargaining agreement.10 Seems likely that unless there is measurable backlash, MLB uniforms will be decorated with patches of sponsorship at that 2040 game you attend.

Fashion in 2040 also might be entirely different from anything we can predict. Factors such as COVID-19 influenced fashion in ways we couldn’t have previously imagined: masks are now a new norm in people’s wardrobes. The sleek form of smartphones and other tech devices may lead us back to the color schemes of metallic and black or navy, or perhaps baseball uniforms will be going through another nostalgia phase, with teams wearing throwback uniforms. Maybe it will be a fashion that is optimized for viewing technology that will allow you and the other spectators to see the uniforms in a form other than what they really are. For example, a ballplayer might be wearing the home white uniform, but when the onlookers have their VR headsets on or look through a lens, the uniform may appear to change color or even provide information to the viewer. Perhaps future uniforms will be marked with the dynamic strike zone, whether visible to the human eye or only to the “robo umps.”

While it may be impossible to predict how baseball uniforms will look in the year 2040, one thing you can count on is that uniforms of the future will make every attempt at safety and comfort. While you are sitting in the stands at that game in 2040, you can bet that there will be more safety equipment worn by players than there is today, as the trend of increasing safety is unlikely to reverse any time soon. In recent years, even base coaches must wear helmets, and given the amount it costs a team to have a player go down with an injury, they are invested in keeping them unhurt. In 2014, Padres pitcher Alex Torres became the first pitcher to wear a protective over-sized padded cap in the field. By 2040, it could become mandatory for pitchers to wear protective caps in the field. And perhaps pitchers will wear masks, the kind you see in collegiate women’s softball, to protect their faces and heads from the 120-plus mile per hour exit velocity comebackers that hitters produce.

But safety in the uniform could go so much further. By 2040, players will undoubtedly be wearing uniforms built around keeping them cooler. Increased cooling ability could be necessary to combat the effects of global warming on athletic performance. “Modern athletic wear can already regulate body temperature, reduce wind resistance and control muscle vibration,” writes Joshua Hehe in an article titled “The Clothing of Tomorrow.” “Just imagine what it will be capable of in the next few decades. Man-machine interface in the clothing industry will undoubtedly take everything to a whole new level in many ways.”11 A “smart” uniform might not look different, but it could be tracking a player’s biometrics and alert the coaching staff to injury or changes in performance.

So, we can’t predict exactly what the uniforms of 2040 will look like. So many different trends, events, requests, contracts, and other factors will inspire and influence the outlook of baseball uniforms in the future. The desires of the owners, the popularity of colors, the needs of ballplayers, safety, demographics, patriotic fever, tradition, the future, and other factors will lead to what we see the players wearing on the diamond. However, one thing is for sure. We will know when we are there, in the ballpark in the year 2040. 

GARY A. SARNOFF has been an active SABR member since 1994. A member of SABR’s Bob Davids Chapter, he has contributed to SABR’s Bio and Games Projects, and to the annual publication of The National Pastime. He is also a member of the SABR Negro Leagues Committee and serves as chairman of the Ron Gabriel Committee. In addition, he has authored two baseball books: The Wrecking Crew of ’33 and The First Yankees Dynasty. He currently resides in Alexandria, Virginia.

Sources

Marc Okkenen, Baseball Uniforms of the 20th Century: The Official Major League Baseball Guide, Sterling Publishing Compnay, Inc. New York, NY., 1991.

Notes

1. Paul Lukas, “The Man Who Saw the Future,” August 14, 2009, UniWatch.com, https://uni-watch.com/the-man-who-saw-the-future/; https://enwikipedia/wiki/turn_ahead_the_clock.

2. Christina Rouvelais, “Pirates play games in uniforms with a futuristic pitch,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, August 18, 1999, E2.

3. Jayson Stark, “In the promotions department, Seattle goes out of this world,” Philadelphia Inquirer, July 26, 1998, C6.

4. UPI, “Futuristic baseball garb made in Japan unveiled,” The Tribune, Scranton, PA. February 17, 1983, 18.

5. Terry Lefton, “Anne Occi reflects on a grand career she designed at Major League Baseball,” May 11, 2021, Sports Business Journal. https://www.bizjournals.com/losangeles/news/2021/05/11/anne-occi-re-flects-on-grand-career-she-designed-at.html.

6. Patricia McLaughlin, “Marketing baseball’s makeover,” The (Madison, WI) Capital Times, March 21, 1994, D1.

7. Lefton, “Anne Occi reflects.”

8. Chip Scoggins, “Is Nothing Sacred?,” Chicago Tribune, April 2, 1999, Sect. 4, page 4. https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1999-04-02-9904020103-story.html.

9. Anthony Stitt, “For a Cool $1 Billion MLB Adds the Nike Swoosh to Uniforms,” December 19, 2019, Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/anthonystitt/2019/12/19/for-a-cool-3-bil-lion-mlb-adds-nike-swoosh-to-uniforms.

10. Terry Lefton, “Patches in Progress for MLB,” July 15, 2019, Sports Business Journal. https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Journal/Issues/2019/07/15/Leagues-and-Governing-Bodies/MLB-patches.aspx.

11. Joshua Hehe, “Clothing of Tomorrow,” Predict Newsletter, June 25, 2017. https://medium.com/predict/the-clothing-of-tomorrow-cd3f72c377ef.

COMMISSIONER ANNOUNCES NEW ALIGNMENT AND ADDRESSES MLB 2041 SEASON INITIATIVES

(NEW YORK, New York)—Major League Baseball Commissioner Roberta Clemente “R.C.” Goldstein announced today the changes for the 2041 Major League Baseball season, via telestream. A transcript of her statements follows:

There has been much speculation about changes to Major League Baseball’s structure for 2041. We have worked tirelessly with the owners, players, and fans to achieve our goals of entertaining the public with baseball of the highest caliber. Our goals of ongoing profitability, safe ballparks, and social consciousness remain priorities along with furthering the mental, emotional, financial, and physical health of our players and staff.

But the 2040s give us a unique opportunity to emphasize the history of Major League Baseball. There will also be highly significant changes to the schedule and a renewed effort to address social issues.

Honoring History

We’re proud to honor the 100th anniversary of the extraordinary 1941 season. July 16th will be Joe DiMaggio Day. All players will wear Joe DiMaggio’s uniform number 5 to mark the date of the 56th and final game of the Yankee Clipper’s hitting streak. Even with the incredible capabilities of today’s players, it’s a record that stands today. Only two other players have broken the 50-game barrier. In 2029, Glenwood Redwood of the Hawaii Kings reached 53 consecutive games. Steve “Crocodile” Lyle’s streak was 51 games with the Buffalo Bisons in 2033.

On September 28 th, players will wear Ted Williams’s uniform number 9. Williams played in a season-ending doubleheader and went six-for-eight to finish the 1941 season with a .406 average. He could have sat out the twin bill to protect his .400 average. Williams is the last player in the American or National Leagues to hit .400 or above.

These honors will be for the 2041 season only.

New Schedule

In 2035, the White Sox-Mets World Series did not end until November 12th because of the Halloween storm that dropped 14 inches of snow on the Chicago-Milwaukee region. Game Six had been scheduled for November 2nd and was postponed to November 10th. Chicago’s 7-0 victory forced Game Seven, which the Mets won, 3-1. Commissioner Goldstein’s remarks:

We are reducing the schedule to 153 games and eliminating interleague play. These are decisions that we do not take lightly. Even though a reduction of nine games will impact the bottom line, we can no longer risk having the World Series extend into November. It’s simply too dangerous to risk having games in under 40-degree weather, which has happened several times in addition to 2035, and weather extremes are on the rise. In addition, an increase in doubleheaders will ensure that the World Series is finished by October 21st.

This 153-game schedule is balanced. Through the elimination of interleague play and with the expansions in 2026 and 2032 (to Las Vegas, Vancouver, Albuquerque, Honolulu, Nashville, and Buffalo), each team will play every other team nine times in their respective leagues. Historic rivalries will be heightened in this paradigm.

Women and Broadcasting

I’m proud to be the first female commissioner of Major League Baseball. MLB continues to strive to increase the participation of women and underrepresented minorities across the board— announcers, umpires, players, front-office staff, owners. We’ve accomplished a lot since the turn of the twenty-first century, but we certainly have a long way to go. So far, there are five female play-by-play TV announcers and four play-by-play radio announcers in Major League Baseball. We also have six women in the umpiring ranks.

I’m pleased to announce the creation of the Effa Manley Award, which will be given to a woman who has demonstrated excellence in an MLB team’s front office. Please note that although it is named after an owner—Manley co-owned the Newark Eagles of the Negro Leagues with her husband, Abe—only non-owners will be considered for the award.

In 2006, Manley became the first woman inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. Joan Payson, the original Mets owner, was inducted in 2030. Helene Hathaway Robison Britton was the first woman to own an MLB team—the St. Louis Cardinals 1911-1917. The Hall of Fame inducted Britton in 2032.

Regarding players, the highest level for a woman player has been Triple-A. But I’m confident we’ll see one in an MLB uniform before 2045.

Name Changes

We’ve had productive conversations about name changes for teams. Fans will recall the changes that occurred in the ’20s, inspired by the social justice protests during the summer of 2020 and the move of the 2021 All-Star Game from Atlanta to Denver over Georgia’s regressive voting laws. In 2022, Cleveland changed its team name from Indians to Commodores, in honor of Commodore Oliver Perry and the Battle of Lake Erie. A year later, Atlanta changed from Braves to Freedom, inspired by Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, which emphasized that word and concept.

But we support the decisions of the Kansas City Royals, San Diego Padres, and Hawaii Kings to keep their names in the face of detractors who claim they foster imperialist attitudes. While there is continuing scholarship on the impact of settler colonialism to native populations, the Padres organization honors the missionaries who built San Diego. King Kamehameha unified the Hawaiian Islands as one entity. That unity remained when Hawaii became a US territory and then a state in 1959. And the Royals moniker simply reflects a benign regality.

In recent years, we’ve seen anti-alcohol organizations protest the Brewers and atheists protest the Angels. The Brewers moniker honors the working class of an industry that employs millions of people. MLB has doubled our budget for Public Service Announcements regarding alcohol consumption and alcoholism. The Angels label has no religious implications.

Health

The MLB community is dedicated to participating in the continuing destigmatization of mental health services. Beginning this season, every MLB team will be required to have at least two mental health professionals on staff. It’s the latest part of our project first initiated in 2025: We’re All on the Same Team. We’ve also had great success encouraging counseling for the public with announcements on the stadium screens, plus the PSAs on TV, radio, and podcasts. Ballplayers are taking their obligation as role models very seriously, so expect to see them engaging on this topic in personal appearances and media interviews.

Robots, Technology, and Artificial Intelligence

Robotic umpiring will be installed to call balls and strikes in 2041, but umpires will still be behind home plate and in the field to call plays.

Advancements in bionics have caused us to revisit the possibility of replacement body parts and limbs. There are no changes to the policy banning bionics at the present time.

The commissioner’s office outlined the new alignment for teams:

AL East

Baltimore Orioles

Boston Red Sox

New York Yankees

Tampa Bay Rays

Toronto Blue Jays

Buffalo Bisons

AL Central

Chicago White Sox

Cleveland Commodores

Detroit Tigers

Kansas City Royals

Minnesota Twins

Texas Rangers

AL West

Los Angeles Angels

Oakland Athletics

Seattle Mariners

Albuquerque Roadrunners

Vancouver Loggers

Las Vegas Flamingos

NL East

Atlanta Freedom

Miami Marlins

New York Mets

Philadelphia Phillies

Washington Nationals

Nashville Sounds

NL Central

Chicago Cubs

Cincinnati Reds

Milwaukee Brewers

Pittsburgh Pirates

St. Louis Cardinals

Houston Astros

NL West

Arizona Diamondbacks

Colorado Rockies

Los Angeles Dodgers

San Diego Padres

San Francisco Giants

Hawaii Kings

DAVID KRELL is the author of 1962: Baseball and America in the Time of JFK and Our Bums: The Brooklyn Dodgers in History, Memory and Popular Culture. He is the editor of the anthologies The New York Yankees in Popular Culture and The New York Mets in Popular Culture. David is the chair of SABR’s Elysian Fields Chapter (Northern New Jersey). He has twice been awarded Honorable Mention in SABR’s Ron Gabriel Award.

Against this backdrop, some might say that we are entering a golden age for women in the game—one that recognizes the value and importance of diversity on and off the field. To assess where the industry stands, I sat down with Janet Marie Smith, Executive Vice President of Planning and Development for the Los Angeles Dodgers, and Bianca Smith (no relation) a minor league coach for the Boston Red Sox. Janet Marie has constructed and renovated some of the most iconic stadiums in baseball including Camden Yards, Fenway Park, and Dodger Stadium. Bianca’s hiring this off-season made her the first African American woman to serve as a professional baseball coach for an affiliated team. As a Baseball Operations Analyst for the Cincinnati Reds and product of the inaugural class of MLB’s Diversity Fellowship program, I wanted to share our perspectives on what the future of women in baseball will look like during this decade and beyond. The following conversation has been edited for clarity and length.

KK: Thank you both for being here! Janet Marie, how do you think the response to women in the game has changed during the course of your career?

JMS: It’s obviously far more accepted today. To see you Katie and Bianca in the game, that is just amazing! The data has [sic] proven over and over again that some of the most successful companies have a woman’s voice. We also see a lot more women playing sports and I think Title IX did everything we hoped it would do when it passed. It’s not nearly as foreign an idea as it was a generation ago because you all have grown up with that as your norm.

KK: Completely! To your point Janet Marie about Title IX, Bianca, you played a number of sports at Dartmouth and now you’re on the field for the Red Sox. Can you speak to that transition and what made you want to put on a uniform again?

BS: At Dartmouth, I’ll admit I was not planning on playing baseball. I played in high school but got hurt my senior year and convinced myself that I wouldn’t be good enough to play in college which is why I ended up being a cheerleader instead and walked on to the softball team. One month later, the club baseball team was started. I really wanted to play baseball so I decided to do both!

It was around that time when I knew I wanted to work in baseball, originally in the front office, and in grad school I was shagging balls during BP wearing jeans, shorts, sweatpants and I went through so many pairs of pants that I said to our coach, ‘Hey, I need some baseball pants.’ Putting the uniform back on and then actually getting to work with the players running drills, throwing batting practice, my position went from your typical Director of Baseball Ops to actually being a coach on the field. That’s when it really hit me—I enjoyed working with players and helping them get better.

KK: That is so cool to hear. I love that moment of you putting the baseball pants on and immersing yourself in that world because you knew that was where you belonged. Janet Marie, what do you recommend for women looking to enter the industry?

JMS: You two are probably the perfect examples of this—you have to map your own way. Waiting for a job to be posted or someone to find you is rare. The way I got into baseball is I went to Larry Lucchino who was then president of the Orioles. I knew he wanted to build a park in downtown Baltimore and harken back to the old days to feel like part of the city and I thought that was something I could do. From what I just heard Bianca say and what I know of your career, Katie you’ve done the same. That’s an extraordinary thing to be able to do, to find an opening and a need and figure out how your skillset can fit that need.

KK: Absolutely, taking the initiative and going after your dreams. Bianca, Janet Marie mentioned Larry Lucchino being one of her mentors and taking a chance on her with Camden Yards. How would you say your mentors have supported you?

BS: The mentorship I’ve received from coaches has helped me feel comfortable enough to actually share my opinion. When you’re a new coach, it doesn’t matter if it’s the major league level or not, any place you go, you hesitate to just jump in because you don’t want to be the coach that immediately begins giving instruction. Having coaches who not only encourage you to ask questions, but also answer them and get you involved is really helpful and easier for you to make that transition than trying to figure out on your own, Okay, when am I comfortable enough to start giving my input? Knowing there are so many coaches who have my back and want me to succeed is important too. I’m sure there are plenty of people, even in this industry, who don’t want to see women do well. It’s a hard truth, but they’re there. So knowing that there are people who do have your back is helpful.

KK: Janet Marie, Bianca brought up the art of entering into a conversation and sharing your opinion. How do you know when to add input or hold back?

JMS: I try to find a right balance between staying in my lane and speaking up when I know that I am the expert on something or a broader point that needs to be made. I can talk about my projects all day long— what we want the building to be, where we want to take it, everything from the transportation to the graphics—I love talking about those things and I’m comfortable in that role, but then I try to make certain that I don’t simply have an opinion on everything. I still even now find it hard to pipe up sometimes on things that aren’t neatly in my corner.

KK: That’s an interesting philosophy, not necessarily commenting on everything, but when you are the authority being willing to come forward and share what you have to say.

JMS: I think it’s really important to add a perspective that isn’t already on the table. Sometimes that perspective feels like it’s learned by osmosis and that’s a harder thing to speak about than if, for example, you’re the only one in the room who understands the process for the city approving this project. Whereas for a topic like “How should we react to Black Lives Matter?” I certainly have an opinion and see some aspects of our organization by living in an urban community that maybe others don’t, but you want to make sure you have an opportunity to say those things that are totally in your wheelhouse.

KK: As more organizations recognize the benefit of having a diverse workforce, how can teams and the league office create an environment of authentic allyship?

JMS: I really admire the initiatives that MLB has taken. I see candidates come through that [MLB diversity hiring] program as rock stars just like you are. The Dodgers have a summer program that is specifically targeted toward minorities and I’ve had some fantastic students. I have often said to my team when we hire someone for this, we’re not using these 12-weeks to bring in someone who has already worked for Fox Sports and the Mets. This is meant to be an opportunity for someone who has never had professional experience to be here so that the next time they go to interview for a job, they’re able to say that they have that experience. It’s the hardest thing in the world to break that first barrier.

BS: Agreed. One thing the league and teams can do is giving minorities responsibilities based on what they actually bring to the table. I speak from experience a bit here, but when a minority is hired for a high profile position, emphasizing why they were hired is so important, not just “we hired a minority for this position.” Focus on why you actually hired them. You have to emphasize this is what they’re good at rather than this is what they look like.

KK: The position that they were hired because they were the best coach or analyst in the applicant pool. We’re recognizing that they have a different identity or affinity status, but at the end of the day we’re hiring them because of what they add to the organization. Who faces the steeper uphill battle—the next Bianca Smith or Kim Ng?

BS: There are different obstacles for both. For women in the front office, there are more role models that you can look to so more women are going to try for those positions. Kim’s the first general manager, but everyone knows she should have been a GM years ago. So as of right now, I think it would be a little harder on the coaching side, but you’re still going to face challenges either way.

KK: That’s such a balanced answer. I’ve always found it absurd that for years to be a coach you needed to have playing experience at the professional level in baseball, but for basketball or football you didn’t face that same requirement and you could have a high-ranking position. I think it’s a dynamic that people cling to, but doesn’t necessarily shake out when you look at other sports.

BS: Some of the worst players can be the best coaches, probably because they were the worst. It’s not being able to do it yourself, it’s translating it for a player and making it effective for them. As long as you can do that, it doesn’t matter if you can hit a 100 MPH fastball, just help the player figure out how to do it.

KK: Exactly, you’re the teacher. Any final thoughts about the future of women in baseball?

JMS: The fan base for baseball is so evenly split for gender [sic] and we should never forget about that. The part of my work that I enjoy the most is positioning things so fans can enjoy the game and create an environment where a rabid fan can count every pitch and keep score, but if he or she is there with other people who just want to experience the atmosphere, they can enjoy that too. I think it’s important that as we think about the future of baseball, we consider all levels of being a fan. Youth baseball is particularly important to grow the game and keeping ticket prices at a place where youth can come and families can feel good about bringing their kids to the ballpark. It’s not totally in the category of gender, but it is in a way since it impacts 50% of your fans and 50% of your potential fans.

A brief anecdote from several years ago: I had a chance to work on the Dodgers’ Dominican facility and we had designed the building to have a women’s locker room. When our head trainer Allison Wood got there she was thrilled to see that there was a place for her to shower, dress, have privacy, but she wanted a locker with the men. Allison said I don’t want to miss out on the banter, socializing or the occasional conversation that’s not scripted, I want to be part of the team. We worked really hard to redesign things so the men could also shower and dress privately, but there would be a way for all of them to be comfortable in the clubhouse and opportunity for those conversations. I hope as we think about facilities going forward we consider the physical space so that women in uniform feel comfortable in that place and feel equal.

KK: That’s part of the reason why I think your job is so amazing, Janet Marie, is because you’re curating spaces so whether it’s a family going to a Dodgers game or Allison, you’re helping people fill a specific need. To your earlier point about half of the fan base being female, I wrote a paper when I was an undergraduate at Northwestern on Ladies Day at Wrigley Field in the 1930s. The Cubs couldn’t believe the number of female fans who would turn out for these free tickets, many of whom would camp overnight! So you’re right, that there has always been a zealous female fan base out there that we need to acknowledge and support because they’re an important part of the long-term success of this game.

JMS: You’ll have to send that paper to me, Katie!

BS: Along those lines of the fan base being split, I will say that personally as a fan, MLB could do better with things like jerseys. I don’t know many women who like a women’s cut for a jersey. So something as simple as that is important. Recognizing that women are fans and they’re not attending games because of their husbands, fathers, brothers, boyfriends, etc. it’s because they actually enjoy the game.

As far as women working in baseball, I’m optimistic. This is my 12th year in the industry and I’ve seen a lot of growth and change. Yes, there’s still a lot to do. Not just getting more qualified women in the game but also keeping them in the game so they feel like they belong. Acknowledging who is in the front office and on the field and figuring out what is the best way that everyone can be comfortable.

KK: Agreed, leaning into the conversation and saying that this is a priority. We recognize it and we’re here to make change. 

KATIE KRALL is in her second season as a Baseball Operations Analyst for the Cincinnati Reds. In her role she develops tools to improve decision-making processes for roster construction, game planning and R & D in addition to providing pro scouting coverage. Krall previously worked for 18 months at the Office of the Commissioner of Major League Baseball. In 2016, she planned the World Series Trophy Tour for the Chicago Cubs. The following summer, she was an Assistant General Manager in the Cape Cod Baseball League. She graduated from Northwestern University and is pursuing her MBA from the University of Chicago.

Hector, you smarmy bastard, enjoy being the answer to the trivia question who was the first batter walked by a female pitcher in the American League? The Fenway faithful are howling for blood—my blood. They’re probably not even sexists, most of them; they’ll put down an opposing player for any reason. Heck, most of them even cheered when I was announced. They’re baseball savvy. They know they’re seeing history.

They still want to win, though. I wander down the back of the mound, rubbing at the baseball. It’s a chilly April night; I can see my breath in the stadium lights and the ball feels like ice. The weather shield keeps out excessive heat and wind; it doesn’t do anything for the cold. We’re up 5-2 in the sixth. The bullpen is gassed from the doubleheader yesterday in which I warmed up four times but never made it in.

I know that’s why I’m the first one out of the ’pen today. Matchups, our pitching coach, Oliver Barnes, said when I got to the mound. It’s all about matchups. But I can’t help feeling like the kid picked last off the bench. Little League has allowed girls since my grandmother’s era, but when you’re the only girl, being last comes with the territory. I remind myself that the way I’ve made it, at every level, is by succeeding once they let me on the field. Now’s not the time to start doubting. This game gives every player a million reasons to doubt themselves, and the ones who succeed are the ones who don’t. Come on, Sal.

Thank goodness they did away with the “time between pitches” clock in the big leagues, because it feels like I’m taking forever. They replaced it with a rule that once the pitcher’s foot is on the rubber, he— the rulebooks literally still say “he,” even though the first woman in the National League debuted ten years ago—has to deliver the pitch within 10 seconds or it’s a ball. Assuming the batter is in the box, that is. Complicating things further, this year they added back two allowed pickoff attempts per at bat, but anything other than that—sneeze, twitch, whatever—and it’s a balk.

No way am I balking Martinez to second. There are two outs already. To put us back in the dugout with the lead intact, I just have to get one guy out.

That guy is Kip Janssen. Of course it is. He’s the only Dutch player in the league right now, which makes him kind of an oddity, but they don’t use words like oddity when you’re slugging over .600; they use words like Ruthian. He waggles the bat over the plate and does that thing with his tongue I used to think was funny, but now seems downright disgusting. I know he does it to all the pitchers, not just me, but maybe it’s no wonder he also leads the league in hit by pitch.

The rest of the pitchers probably didn’t have to deal with him bragging to their minor league teammates that he slept with them, though. The only reason the guys believed me, and not the big-leaguer on rehab, was that his shit-talking was already so legendary.

Kip’s mouth is moving—talking to Jerry or the umpire. Or both. Probably telling them he knows what’s coming because he mentored me when I was coming up through the minors or something. He was only in Louisville for a week, and for the record we did stay late in the VR batting cage one night, but I not only turned down his advances, I didn’t learn anything about pitching from him.

Because Kip doesn’t know shit about pitching. Jerry knows it. I can see his eyes roll even shadowed by his mask. I come set. The moment my foot is touching the rubber and the batter steps into the box, I hear the little click of Jerry’s helmet mic coming on. We get 10 seconds to communicate before I have to throw. I resist the urge to fiddle with my earbug, because that would be a balk, and I’m grateful it cuts down some of the whine from the camera drones overhead. I expect to hear Jerry call the pitch.

But what he says is, “Sally. You got this.” Jerry’s a good guy. He kind of has to be: backup catchers can’t be assholes or they wouldn’t keep their jobs. Like me, he went undrafted out of college, and had to prove himself in indie ball. After the major-league expansion of 2030, he made the jump; I signed five years later, but there are critics who’ll say the same thing about us both: without expansion diluting the talent pool, we wouldn’t even be here. That’s what Boston’s scouting director told me when they traded me from Louisville to Aberdeen. Maybe he didn’t believe it, but he couldn’t come out and tell me they were shipping me out because of the “rumor” I’d slept with a teammate. The closest he came to admitting that was some vague, paternalistic “advice” about keeping my wits about me or some horseshit.

Keeping my wits about me right now means keeping my eyes on Jerry. I see his hand move—his pinky extends. Our visual sign for fastball away. There are rumors that the Red Sox have hacked catcher audio at Fenway; why take the chance? I shake him off. I’m a lefty, Kip’s a lefty, and I know I can beat him in. Jerry’s eyes are incredulous that I’m shaking him off. Rookies aren’t supposed to do that to veterans, but I just stare over the top of my glove. Kip’s got too much power the other way, he’ll just double off the Green Monster…

Except I’ve got to stop thinking that way or I’ll beat myself. Jerry relents: we’re coming inside. I pitch like I always do, dropping down sidearm. I give him my best “lefty laredo,” but between the unfamiliar mound and my cold, damp fingers—I swear I didn’t mean to—I plunk Kip Janssen right in his meaty thigh and he makes a noise like a surprised donkey.

Two men on. This is not the way anyone imagines their big league debut is going to go when they do their positive visualization exercises. I can’t even glance toward the dugout. Barny and Kratz, the skipper, must be beside themselves. I don’t want to let them down. Barny’s been great. He coached a college team once that had a female walk-on player. He told me that to try to put me at ease, I think, like it was no big deal to him who I was, but it only really highlighted to me that women who break through into men’s college baseball are still on the rare side. There are 10-20 a year, which sounds like a lot until you realize there are over 10,000 players in Division I baseball alone.

Somehow over the crowd noise and drones and music, I can hear Kip Janssen greeting our team captain, Paul Corso, with a booming, “Hey, Paulie!” as he reaches first base. Of course they know each other from All-Star Games. Corso’s been vocally supportive of me in the press, but he hasn’t really said much to me personally, outside of when we practiced pickoffs a few weeks ago. You’d think it would chap my ass to see him fraternizing with Janssen at a moment like this.

The tying run is coming to the plate, and my catcher is coming to the mound. I finally do it— I glance at the dugout—but it’s only Jerry coming to talk to me, no coaches. Barny and Kratz look stoic over there, wearing their poker faces. Three batter minimum—blessing or curse?

“What’s going on?” Jer asks, glove over his mouth so the lipreaders can’t see or make a meme out of him. I think they should just make the catcher mic live all the time, but MLB—and some of the catchers themselves—have resisted that. “You nervous?”

“No, I’m giddy as a goat at a square dance,” I deadpan, and I can tell his glove is hiding a smile. If I’m doing sarcastic impressions of our Alabama-raised bench coach, I must be okay.

“Attaboy. I mean, girl,” he says, and bops me on the shoulder with his glove before he jogs back to home plate.

The mound visit did help me catch my breath. I’m not calm, but I can act like I am, and sometimes that’s the same thing. It’s hardly the first jam I’ve had to get out of, right? The next hitter is a guy I saw play as a kid. The ovation for him is deafening. He’s a Boston favorite, Xander Bogaerts, currently the oldest guy in the majors and a fan favorite, ever since he returned to the Sox after that disastrous trade to Atlanta. He’s 49 years old, one of the last of the guys who got methylation and anti-glycation before anti-aging treatments were outlawed by MLB, and he’s more popular than ever.

He’s a tall righty, thicker around the middle that he was when I saw him play as a kid. My mom chaperoned my whole travel soccer team to the Northeast regional tournament in Boston when I was ten and took us all to a game at Fenway, back before they built the overhead weather shield. At the time I’d just thought it was cool his name started with the letter X and that Mom let us have real meat hot dogs. I wonder if they still serve those or if they’ve gone to plant-based dogs like every other park by now?

I try to imagine Xander’s got X’s for eyes, like a knocked-out boxer in an old cartoon. He’s in the box. My foot’s on the rubber. Jerry clears his throat but says nothing, just drops a series of signs. They’re fake, just there to distract Martinez who’s trying to steal them from second. The bop on my shoulder was the signal for what we’re going to do.

Kip takes his lead. As a lefty, I can see his every move. He’s still jawing away. So is Paulie. That’s it. Laugh it up. I turn my head to focus on Jerry.

My high hard fastball isn’t as hard as some, but coming from my arm angle to a righty, it looks very tempting. And it is. It tempts Bogaerts to swing.

And miss. Strike one. I hear Janssen bray from first base. Jerry slings the ball right back to me and I get right on the rubber. Bogaerts can’t leave the box and we’re going to come right after him before his brain has a chance to process my delivery. It’s not quickpitching, not really, but for a guy who came up in the era when every batter tried to make himself a human rain delay, it must seem quick. At least, that’s the hope. I change arm angles slightly to spot the pitch on the outer half of the plate. Strike two. Unfortunately, Jerry can’t quite hang on and the ball trickles away. Not enough for the runners to advance, but enough that Bogaerts is allowed to step out.

He fixes his batting gloves and does a knee bend and whatever else. I glance over to first again and I see Paulie bop Janssen companionably on the shoulder. I pretend I didn’t even see that and I focus on Jerry in his crouch. I’m not even looking at the batter as he steps in. Jerry mouths encouragement. Here goes. Just like we practiced. Here goes.

I step and sling the ball to first. Kip is caught flat-footed, his eyes round with surprise in that split-second where he realizes he’s been had. He’s been lulled into a false sense of security by a friendly face, not realizing that Corso had it in for him the whole time. Betrayed by someone you thought was your buddy. He dives back, but all he gets is a whack in the face with the tag, his fingers patting the dirt an inch or two shy of the bag. Inning over.

He lies there in disbelief as the rest of us trot off the field. Paulie’s grin is genuine as he bangs my glove on our way to the dugout. I grin back. I’ll wear my poker face for the media later. I’m sure they’re going to ask about the pickoff. I know what I’ll tell them. A veteran like Janssen should’ve known better. Should’ve been more careful. Should’ve been more cognizant of the consequences. Gotta keep your wits about you. Right? 

CECILIA M. TAN was a professional science fiction writer and editor for two decades before she became SABR’s Publications Director in 2011. Her short stories have previously appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, Absolute Magnitude, Strange Horizons, and Ms. Magazine, among many other places. In addition to comma-jockeying for SABR, she has exhibited her baseball editing prowess for various sites and publications, including Baseball Prospectus, the Yankees Annual, and Baseball-Reference.com. This issue of The National Pastime has given her a rare chance to combine her favorite subjects.

TRANSGENDER PLAYER SIGNS WITH OAKLAND

(OAKLAND, California)—The Oakland Athletics carved the team’s name into the record books Friday by signing Alejandra Gallardo to a minor league deal. Gallardo, a transgender woman, is the first woman to be drafted by a major league franchise and is also the first openly trans player in MLB-affiliated ball.

Gallardo played softball as a freshman at UCLA, mostly at shortstop. She had then requested a tryout for the baseball team as a pitcher, her position in high school, where she had played on her school’s baseball team. In three seasons as a reliever and spot-starter for the UCLA Bruins, during which she amassed a 3.51 ERA and 1.08 WHIP in 75 innings, Gallardo went undrafted.

Gallardo said, “This is a huge day for myself, my family, and the LGBTQ+ community. We have finally made a dent in Major League Baseball that should have been made a long time ago.”

Athletics Owner John Fisher said, “The Oakland Athletics are honored to bring aboard the first transgender woman of our time into our organization. This is something that has been a long time coming. It was truly our mistake that we didn’t think to draft Gallardo initially. However, having the opportunity to pick up her contract and bring her into our organization now is something we couldn’t pass up.”

Commissioner Tony Reagins said, “This is a huge day for the game of baseball. While we have made inroads in bringing women into the game as coaches and front office executives, including the first female head pitching coach in Jennie Finch for the Pirates a year ago, we have been missing the key element of having a female out on the field. This is a huge step in the right direction for our league and I anticipate the first of many to come.”

There has been some backlash surrounding the situation. A player from the Athletics AAA affiliate in Las Vegas where Gallardo will play, spoke under condition of anonymity, telling the San Francisco Chronicle, “Listen, I understand social change. I get it. But what I don’t understand is why are we giving handouts and letting a transgender woman into our locker room just because of her sexual orientation. It does not make sense to me, it never will.”

The mood around the Athletics locker room was much more positive surrounding the signing. Outfielder Kendrick Jackson said, “I’m honored to be a part of an organization that cares the way the Athletics do. This is history and I’m just proud to be here to witness it.”

DUSTY BAKER was born to love the game of baseball after being named after the player and manager. Baker began his journey in the sports world as an Athletic Ambassador for the TCU Football program while he was a student at the university. After his graduation, Baker took over as a Sports Anchor and Reporter for KTAB and KRBC in Abilene, Texas, for three years where he covered the Texas Rangers and the 2020 MLB Postseason. Baker is currently a Sports Anchor and Reporter in San Luis Obispo for KSBY.

The family was anchored in St. Louis, where I spent my summers reading juvenile science-fiction novels by the famous writers of the day and listening to Harry Caray and Jack Buck on KMOX radio as they called the Cardinals games. The Redbirds were not often on television in those days, but KMOX brought the games right into our living room and—in April, May, and September—right into my elementary and high school classrooms through those marvelous early transistor radios.

Taffy Wilber interviewing Joe Namath (AUTHOR’S COLLECTION)

We went to the games often, of course—especially in the 1960s, when the Cardinals had some great years and Mom worked in the Cardinals’ front office and had box seats as a perk. But even there, those transistor radios brought Harry and Jack right into our ears as we watched Bob Gibson wind up to pitch or Lou Brock take a lead off first as he got ready to try for yet another stolen base.

Cardinals baseball was perfect for radio, with plenty of time for Harry and Jack to wax eloquent about the players and the situation on the field before Gibby would bring in that angry fastball or Lou would take off for second. Perhaps it is nostalgic of me, but often I still listen to my hometown team’s games that way, though now it’s the Tampa Bay Rays and I get the radio broadcast through my Kindle Fire’s At Bat app from MLB.com. I have my ear buds in as I’m reading a science fiction novel from one or another of the writers of the day—Kevin J. Anderson or Fran Wilde or E. Lily Yu or James Patrick Kelly—and I’m listening to the Rays broadcast as Andy Freed and Dave Wills wax eloquent about Tyler Glasnow and his occasional triple-digit fastball or Randy Arozarena’s amazing 2020 postseason hitting and can he keep it going this season? Much of that chatter goes by me as I focus on the story and then Freed tells me here’s the pitch, and Arozarena gets into that one and maybe he’ll stretch it to a triple.

I may be only half-listening—multi-tasking, as we all do so much these days—but in an instant the excitement in the voices of Freed and Wills clues me in. I’m fully engaged as the play takes place, and I am reminded again how good it is to listen to baseball via radio, no matter what device carries it to me.

A week later, I have a game on as I sit at my desk writing. The Rays are hosting the Yankees in what is certainly one of baseball’s most heated current rivalries. There’s some history of bad blood between these teams and Austin Meadows has just been hit by a pitch for the second time in the game. I’m expecting the dugouts to empty, but the umps intervene and for now the aggression remains mere angry chatter and the game goes on. Good, I’m thinking. Play ball. This isn’t hockey. Yet.

I hope we never lose that sense of being there in the booth with the announcer as the tension builds and the moment happens, time after time, inning after inning, game after game, season after season. But new technologies are on the cusp of bringing us even more immersive experiences.

The story I’m writing has a protagonist—an ex-pro basketball player—who’s taken up sportscasting and commentary, and who wears a device called a Sweep media system.1 The Sweep picks up all of his sensory input as he meets with one celebrity or another while interviewing them, takes a few swings at batting practice with the hitter that’s flirting with .400, or goes one-on-one with an All-Star shooting guard in the WNBA, or competes with a famous golfer in a hole-in-one contest. Viewers wearing a receiving unit sense what he sees and hears and smells and touches and tastes. They feel as if they’re sharing his experience fully, whether he’s shooting that three or shagging fly balls during batting practice or having a hot dog at Pink’s in Hollywood. They’re inside his head, sensing it all, being part of him.

I started writing these stories about the Sweep system twenty years ago, and I set them in the 2030s, which I thought was well into the future, when the technology might well be available. Now we’re only nine years away and it’s obvious to me that the tech I imagined is nearly here already. New kinds of immersive media are on the horizon, including one where you’ll be able to feel as if you are the shortstop turning that dazzling double play or the pitcher hitting the triple digits as he lets a high, hard one fly.

Though I love baseball on the radio—a technology that’s been around since the mid-1890s, when Guglielmo Marconi managed to send some signals from one aerial to another on his family’s estate in Italy—loving that old technology doesn’t mean I don’t embrace the new. I’m a simple user, for sure, not a developer; but my smartphone is chock-full of apps, including Ballpark—where the digital Rays tickets are stored that get my son and I into our socially-distanced Sunday matinee games (we’re both fully vaccinated, I should add). My wife and I were the first family in the neighborhood to cut the cable cord and start streaming all our television, and were the first, too, to bring Alexa into our house, where it not only answers our questions and keeps track of things generally, it also runs the three—count ’em, three—Roombas that zoom around keeping things clean. This fascination with new tech prompted me to apply to be a Google Glass Explorer back in 2013. Google said yes to my application and I spent $1500 on Google Glass, a technology that was ahead of its time and suffered from privacy problems, but is still around, as you’ll see. I try to stay current; my excuse is that it’s necessary research for my science fiction, both for background details and as a reminder of how fascinating (and worrisome) the future can be.

So I fancy myself a futurist and I’m willing to take an educated guess at how the media will present the game of baseball to us in the coming years, both at the ballpark and in the new ways to bring the game right into our living rooms. Let’s start with some technology that’s available now or will be very soon, and then look forward into the future, with technology that’s being talked about but isn’t here yet.

Virtual Reality (VR) is here right now and rapidly improving. This technology brings you into a three-dimensional artificial environment where you interact with that environment in any number of ways, competing in a next-generation video game, flying an airplane, soaring over the Great Wall of China or the Grand Canyon, attending a rock concert or, if you’re into baseball, taking your swings against a very realistic pitcher. VR typically requires a headset and controllers for your hands.

Baseball video games have been around for a long time. The best of them, like R.B.I. Baseball, coming from Major League Baseball’s Advanced Media group. Putting those games into a three-dimensional virtual word takes them to a new level of seeming verisimilitude. The technology is so realistic that there are training apps out there now that you can use to help your inner big-league ballplayer take on some serious pitching. One that some players are said to have used during the 2020 hiatus is the WIN Reality on the Oculus 2, where you choose your pitching level, hold the controller (and maybe a bat with it) and step up to the virtual plate.2

A new wrinkle in this virtual reality environment is MLB.com’s streaming service of live games, now presented in 3D. One of the most popular VR headsets is the self-contained Oculus Quest 2 and with that headset and your subscription to MLB.com you can stream out-of-market games through your Oculus, zooming around the field and into the dugout, seeing all the live action, even replaying favorite games back to the 2018 season.3 You get pitch-by-pitch data visualization and other stats in overlays when you want them, and 360-degree video highlights. All of this from the comfort of your couch at home. At the 2021 SABR Analytics Conference, developers from MLBAM hinted that by using software extrapolation, soon they hope to be able to offer angles on plays as if from a player’s perspective to Oculus and other VR platform users.4

This all makes great sense to me if you’re not able to attend games in person and if you already use the Oculus for gaming and other entertainment. Is the enhanced 3D imagery and the ability to manipulate your viewpoint worth wearing the bulky Oculus headset to watch major-league games that never include your home team (only out-of-market is available because of media rights deals) worth the $300 price tag? That’s up to you.

Del Wilber spent eight seasons in the big leagues with the Cardinals, Phillies, and Red Sox (AUTHOR’S COLLECTION)

Augmented Reality Glasses, or Smart Glasses, are here now, too, though the best of them are pricey. Most pairs, which look very much like a regular pair of glasses, can present information to you about what you’re seeing. You choose whether to focus on the live action in front of you or the information. They are typically voice actuated: you “tell” the glasses what information you need. You can take pictures or videos, too, and share them immediately through email or through social media apps like Facebook or Instagram.

At their simplest, smart glasses are very much as if your smartphone became a pair of glasses. Will fans use them? Take a look around at the next game you’re able to attend and see how many people look at their smartphones during the game, checking their email, taking a quick picture and posting it on Facebook, looking up the stats on the next hitter or checking into some arcane fact about the action on the field. You can do all of that through smart glasses, even as you converse through texts or messages or, soon no doubt, by voice with others online, perhaps at the same game, sharing videos (“Hey, look at this, I got a great video of that Kiermaier catch at the wall!”).

Baseball has always been about conversations, right? You talk to those around you, high-fiving with the fans in the rows in front and behind you when a good thing happens, and moaning with them when your cleanup hitter takes a called third strike. With smart glasses you’re able to watch the action live and see chats from fans from all over the park, or all over the world, depending on your tech and settings. You can also easily connect to the radio broadcast of the game, so the announcers are in your ear while you’re glancing at the stats, perhaps, while watching the action on the field.

I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that Major League Baseball Advanced Media is already working on its own kind of smart glasses, perhaps on a team by team basis. You could purchase preset glasses at the ballpark or download the app that would provide your existing smart glasses with the relevant information, like the pitch by pitch feed for your team’s home games. Additionally, these smart glasses take pictures and videos, so you could tell your glasses to take a video of the next pitch. Maybe you’ll capture the perfect bunt, or the home run, or the great catch in center field.

The downside for augmented-reality smart glasses is the price. The top of the line models, like the Microsoft HoloLens 2 or the Magic Leap One, cost thousands of dollars, and even the less expensive ones run $500 or more. Some of the glasses also use haptic technology in gloves you wear. With haptic technology, when your glasses show you a virtual object you can have the sensation of touching it via the gloves.

As an early adopter of Google Glass back in 2013, I found that early device clumsy to use but was fascinated by its potential. I shared it with my students, I wore it on long bike rides and to baseball games and walks on the beach. It worked. It took surprisingly good pictures and videos, but it was those pictures and videos that were problematic for people. If you were wearing Google Glass all you had to do was blink and the device took a picture. This felt intrusive, for sure, since those around you never knew when you were taking their picture. That privacy concern became a major knock on Google Glass, and a deserved one.

Google Glass is still around, as Glass Enterprise Edition 2, and still expensive, at more than $1000. The Enterprise Edition 2 is aimed at industrial and other professional training, allowing management and employees to learn dangerous jobs in a safe environment.

Immersive reality—in the way I’m using it here for purposes of predicting how the media may work with baseball in five or ten years—may be some variation on the fictional future I’ve predicted in my novels and stories. My fictional Sweep system can have, let’s say, a baseball star who is willing to be connected very directly to his fans, transmit his sensory input to those fans. They’ll feel the wind on his face as he’s racing toward third for a triple. They’ll not only see the third baseman put his glove up waiting for the ball, they’ll feel the dirt on their faces as our player slides headfirst, touches the bag, and a half-second later, feel the tag on their shoulder. Safe.

Players, coaches, and managers have already taken the first step in this direction when they’ve agreed to be miked up during games, which happens now with some frequency. Once mostly done as a Fox or ESPN game-of-the-week gimmick, hot mikes on players have become a staple of MLB’s own YouTube channel.5 All the fans get now is the player’s audio and some ambient noise, but what if the player were also wearing smart contact lenses that could capture what he was seeing and transmit it to the fans?

Smart contact lenses are already available in their early stages of development for health and vision purposes. They show promise, in the years to come, to be able to do almost everything that smart glasses do, including heads-up displays of information. An article published online by The American Academy of Ophthalmology predicts that, in the years to come, smart contacts will have the same visual displays as smart glasses.6

Will our miked and lensed player wear these tools only during a game, or might he build a large fanbase by wearing them at home, or when he’s out for dinner, or at an awards ceremony, or with his wife, playing in the front yard with their children? And will he consent to having haptic connections for touch, too, when such connections are possible? And for taste? And for smell? I’m guessing yes. Many ballplayers are already active on Twitter and other social-media platforms; they seem to enjoy the celebrity. Can Sweep media be far behind? I suspect not.

For now, I’m waiting for the price to drop on those smart glasses, so I can see the stats and watch the live action and, just like the good old days, listen to the radio broadcast as my team, the Tampa Bay Rays, try to earn their way back to the World Series. 

RICK WILBER’s new science-fiction novel, Alien Day (Tor, 2021), features a near-future journalist who uses a Sweep media system for his reporting, where his audience becomes one with the journalist as he works. Wilber has published a half-dozen novels and short-story collections and some sixty short stories in major markets, including the award-winning “Something Real,” in 2012, that features a fictional version of famous ballplayer and spy, Moe Berg. He is a visiting professor in the low-residency MFA in Creative Writing at Western Colorado University and he lives in St. Petersburg, Florida. His website is www.rickwilber.net.

Notes

1. In my long-running S’hudonni Empire series of stories and novels. The most recent, Alien Day, was published by Tor/Macmillan in June 2021.

2. Information page for Win Reality baseball VR training program, https://winreality.com/baseball.

3. “MLB VR,” Specs page for the MLB VR feed for Oculus Quest VR devices, https://www.oculus.com/experiences/quest/2873640696088444.

4. Graham Goldbeck, Marc Squire, Sid Sethupathi, “MLB Statcast Player Pose Tracking and Visualization,” Presented at SABR Analytics Conference, March 14, 2021.

5. In 2020 MLB’s Youtube channel introduced a recurring video series entitled “Mic’d Up,” and in 2021 a series of videos entitled “Play Loud,” featuring mic’d up players on both benches in a game.

6. Reena Mukamal, “High-Tech Contact Lenses That Go Beyond Correcting Vision.” February 5, 2020, American Academy of Ophthamology website, https://www.aao.org/eye-health/tips-prevention/smart-contact-lens-tech-beyond-vision-correction.

This may seem like a fantasy, but it could be the future of baseball. Fan-ownership of sports teams works. The fan-owned Green Bay Packers are one of the most prestigious teams in the National Football League. In Europe, fan-owned teams dominate the top soccer competition. Moving Major League Baseball teams to a fan ownership model can lead not only to success on the field, but increased democracy, increased transparency, and a stronger sense of community and investment for fans.

Green Bay Packers fans, sporting cheese-wedge hats, one of which reads “OWNER.” (Photo by Mike Morbeck/Creative Commons)

WHY FAN OWNERSHIP?

Currently, when franchise decisions are made, there is no community involvement. Decisions are made by wealthy owners. And the interests of the fans and the interests of the owner are not always the same. This has many wondering if we need owners at all.1 As one writer put it, “Our sports franchises are public assets that we have allowed to be owned by private rich people.”2

Fan ownership means that fans control the goals, finances, and on-field product. If fans decide to pay profits back to members, then that’s up to the fans. If the fans decide that the profit margin is too big, they can make games more affordable for the average fan; this happens in Germany, whose fan-owned soccer teams generally have lower ticket prices and higher attendance than other countries.3 They can also decide to increase prices and how to spend the profits: in making the team better on the field and/or improving their communities with scholarships, grants, or other charitable or developmental enterprises. MLB teams currently do offer various forms of community support and charitable giving, but with fan ownership these become meaningful decisions made by the community.

THE STAKEHOLDERS

The ownership structures of sports franchises should be centered on the interests of all stakeholders. In the current structure, owners are the only stakeholders with any meaningful input. That interest is primarly a business one: turning a profit.

The most important stakeholders in professional sports are the fans. While the players make sports possible, fans make sports profitable. A franchise’s fans are customers, advertising audience, neighbors, community, and soul. Sports without fans are just exercise.

Another crucial stakeholder is the local community. Businesses around the stadium often rely on gameday revenue, but other businesses and organizations struggle to compete with sports. A stadium without sufficient parking can cause businesses to lose foot traffic from parking congestion during games. Fans are usually local citizens who get a sense of belonging and identity from following the local franchise, celebrating successes and mourning losses as a group. Local governments benefit from tax revenue from the stadium and players’ income, but they are also often strongarmed into giving taxpayer-funded stadiums to billionaire owners. Taxpayer funding means that even non-fans in the local community have an interest in how a franchise is run and how the local government interacts with it.

Players also have an interest in franchise decisions. They train their whole lives for a very short career. Therefore, players need to make as much money and win as much as possible in just a few years. Players have the same interest in the franchise as other workers: They create the business’s value, so they deserve a say in decision-making.

FAN OWNERSHIP MODELS

Current models give us insight into how future fanowned teams might look. There are two dominant models. The most common model looks similar to a corporation, where fans purchase some sort of buy-in that gives them voting rights. Some models give fans more to vote on, but the basic structure is that fans purchase voting rights via stock shares or membership fees, and then vote for directors who oversee franchise operations. Less common is direct, municipal ownership by the local government. In the second model, fans get voting rights from citizenship.

The most famous example of the corporate model in American sports is the Green Bay Packers. Packers fans buy in when new “shares” are issued. Shares give them the right to vote for team directors, who then elect a committee to make the operational decisions by hiring a GM, who runs the day-to-day operations. While reasonable minds can disagree on how much say this really gives fans, the fact is that most American sports fans lack even that much say in their team’s operation. In 2011 the Packers announced a plan for a $146 million stadium improvement, paid for with a new round of stock offerings instead of strong-arming the local government to use tax dollars.4

There are similar examples in affiliated baseball’s minor leagues. The Syracuse (NY) Chiefs of the International League were a fan-owned team from 1961 until 2017. They originated as a fan-owned team after multiple owners moved teams out of Syracuse. Fans bought shares which allowed them to vote for directors, with no person allowed to vote more than 500 shares, no matter how many they owned. Financial trouble hit in the 2000s, and in 2017, after a bizarre series of events, the team was sold to the New York Mets.5 The team took a loan from a group of directors in exchange for 600 shares plus control of the board.6 The group installed their own general manager, then reported about one-third of all shares (representing more than half of all shareholders) as abandoned property to the State of New York, increasing the per-share profit of the remaining shares from the sale to the Mets.7 Over 900 people had to reclaim their shares to get a share of the profits from the sale.8

Another fan-owned team that went private recently was the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers. The High-A team, along with its Fox Cities Stadium and sister team, the Fond Du Lac Dock Spiders, were owned by the Appleton Baseball Club—a fan-owned venture that operated minor-league baseball in Appleton, Wisconsin, since 1939.9 The club failed financially due to the cancellation of the 2020 season during the COVID-19 pandemic. The club was purchased by Third Base Ventures, a group headed by Craig Dickman, a long-time Appleton and Green Bay Packers director, for an undisclosed fee.

Other examples of this style of ownership are on display at the highest levels of European soccer. In Germany’s Bundesliga, all clubs must follow a 50 + 1 rule, requiring the club to hold at least 50% plus one of all of its own shares. The club is run by presidents and directors who are elected by the members—fans who pay a membership fee. This means no private owner can take control of the club away from the fans and put profits ahead of fan interests.10 The prices of membership are affordable for average fans. Membership fees for Germany’s largest and most successful club, Bayern Munich, run just 60 Euros (~$72) per year.11 The second most successful and third biggest club, Borusia Dortmund, only costs 62 Euros ($75) per year.12 Because the focus is on the fans and the team rather than profits, Germany has some of the lowest ticket prices and highest attendances in all of Europe.13

Spanish soccer also gives us examples, where the two richest and most successful clubs are fan-owned: Real Madrid and FC Barcelona. Under Spanish law, soccer clubs must be privately owned, with four clubs (Real Madrid, Barcelona, Athletic Bilbao, and CA Osasuna) being grandfathered in as fan-owned clubs.14 For these clubs, fans buy a membership, which gives them the right to vote on directors, president, and various other club items. Membership costs a Real Madrid fan about 150 Euros (~$181), and an FC Barcelona fan 185 Euros ($224).15 The membership structure ensures that these clubs cannot be purchased by private owners.

Critics of the fan-ownership models in soccer say that teams need rich, private owners to put in the money necessary to compete in Europe. This criticism fails both in regard to team success and fan happiness. In Spain, Real Madrid, Barcelona, and Athletic Bilbao have combined to win 68 of 89 league championships (76%).16 From 2010 through the 2020 campaign, Real Madrid, Barcelona, or Bayern Munich have won 8 of the 10 UEFA Champions League titles.17 In fact, Real Madrid, Barcelona, or a German team have won 26 of 65 tournaments (40%), with Real Madrid having the most wins ever (13), Bayern tied for third (6), and Barcelona fifth (5).18 These three teams also lead all of Europe in their UEFA Club Coefficient, a stat measuring a team’s success in European competitions over the past five years.19 This success, combined with the fact that German soccer continually has the best league-wide attendance numbers across Europe, shows that fanownership can deliver trophies, fan empowerment, and financial stability.

A less common method of fan/community ownership is the direct ownership of a team by a local government entity. The best example of this was the Double-A Harrisburg (PA) Senators. The private owners of the Senators threatened to move the team unless the city gave them a new, publicly-funded stadium. Faced with the choice between an unreasonable demand and losing their local team, the City of Harrisburg decided to buy the franchise outright in 1995. The purchase price was $6.7 million, with $1.25 million coming from capital reserves and the remaining $5.45 million coming from a bond issue.20 Facing budgetary issues, the city sold the team in 2007 for $13.25 million plus a guarantee to keep the team in Harrisburg for at least 29 years.21

The fact that Harrisburg bought their team with public money, nearly doubled their investment in just over a decade, and kept the team in town shows that municipal ownership can work. In this model, a sports team could operate much the same way as a municipal “enterprise fund,” where certain activities are paid for and run in ways similar to what a private business might do, except that public service, rather than private profit, is the driving motivation. For example, many cities or counties own their water or electricity distribution services. They provide the water or power to citizens and businesses and charge fees for distribution and usage. Often, the money paid to the water or power system is put into its own account, separate from the government’s “general fund,” but still under the control of local elected officials. That money is then used primarily to improve those services, but can also be moved to the “general fund” under certain circumstances to accomplish other government objectives.

The issue of municipal ownership has come up in the major-league baseball context as well. When McDonald’s founder and owner of the San Diego Padres Ray Kroc died in 1984, his widow Joan Kroc inherited the team. She tried to donate the team to the City of San Diego, but an owners’ committee persuaded her to drop the idea, and she sold the team in 1990.22 When Major League Baseball took control of the Dodgers from the feuding McCourts, sports journalist Dave Zirin advocated for the team to be given to the fans, while also lamenting the lack of public pressure to do so.23 These examples show the single largest obstacle to any meaningful development in fan ownership is the leagues themselves. All major American sports leagues, including Major League Baseball, now prohibit anything but private, for-profit ownership of teams.24

FAN-OWNED vs COMMUNITY-OWNED MODELS

As we think about a future of fan-owned baseball teams, we have to consider what features are necessary to achieve ownership that is democratic, transparent, and representative of fan interests. To see what this looks like, consider the two dominant forms already discussed: community ownership, which would be ownership by some level of government, and fan ownership, which would be ownership by fans who buy some sort of voting rights share.

Community ownership is a straightforward concept. The city, county, or state would take over the team and appoint employees to operate it under the same laws and regulations that other government agencies have to follow. The teams could be run like other “enterprise funds,” such as municipal power, water, or other services with their own budgets and oversight.

The government entity could purchase the team the way Harrisburg did when it bought the Senators, or it could forcibly purchase the team from the current owners with Eminent Domain. Eminent Domain is the legal principle stemming from the Fifth Amendment of the US Constitution, which provides that the government can take private property as long as the owner receives due process and fair market value in return, and the property will be for public use. Usually in sports, property is taken from low-income residents and given to wealthy owners on the premise that having the team is a public purpose, even if the taken property becomes private.25 In this case, the taking would turn the business into public property.

This form of ownership has several advantages. First, the decisions, finances, and inner workings of the team would be required to comply with the principles of democracy, community input, and transparency (sunshine laws, open meetings laws, etc.) that governments are subject to under state, federal, and local law. This is a benefit to all in the community who currently have no say and little access to information about team operations. Second, this method puts all community members on equal footing, regardless of fanhood. Finally, the community would own a profitgenerating asset whose proceeds are used to benefit the citizens. Cities could decide to keep profits low by keeping ticket prices low, which is good for the fans, or it could decide to use the profits for public services. Imagine profits from beer and hot dogs at the ballpark being used to fix roads, hire more firefighters, or provide better public education.

There are cons to this method of ownership. Not all fans live within the city, county, or state where their team sits. My hometown Cincinnati Reds, a small-market team, have fans not only in Cincinnati, but in other counties in Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana. Those fans would be left out of any say in or benefit from a community ownership model. Another issue is deciding which level or levels of government should own the team. While cities like Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, can afford to buy a Double-A team, how many large cities can afford to buy a major-league team? Surely cities like New York, Los Angeles, or Chicago could find the money. But cities like Cincinnati, Cleveland, Kansas City, or Milwaukee may not have the money or operational capacity. With smaller cities, the county’s or state’s help might be needed. However, as one author pointed out several years ago, sometimes cities spend more on stadiums to give to teams than it would cost to buy the team outright.

Fan ownership using a Board of Directors is another approach. In this case, the teams would have to be bought by—or given to—the new entity from the previous owner. We have seen examples of shareholder and membership models. A shareholder model like that in Green Bay and most other American examples is a step in the right direction, but the membership model holds more promise as a way to allow more fans to participate and to prevent private owners from taking the club back.

As we saw with the Syracuse Chiefs, allowing individuals to buy more shares gives those individuals more voting power. That is how a few directors with outsized voting rights privatized a fan-owned team. When the vote to approve the sale to the Mets took place, about 100 of the approximately 4,000 shareholders voted, but almost two-thirds of the shares were voted. Some methods to limit this power by wealthy individuals would be to make the shares unable to be cashed out, as the Green Bay Packers have done, or to have a Board of Directors made up of a minority of shareholders, with the other seats on the Board held by local government representatives and player representatives. An absolute limit on the number of shares that any one person or entity can vote is essential for this type of ownership to be any different from current ownership.

By contrast, the membership method with a one-member-one-vote setup allows far more people to participate in the decision-making, and prevents a few individuals from wielding outsized influence. This prevents individual members from being “owners” in a legal sense, which means that there is no incentive for them to seek profit from membership. As we saw with the European soccer examples, a reasonably priced membership can be affordable for the average fan where stock shares might not be. A membership system also breeds participation because once someone stops being a member, their voting rights cease. Votes will not be tied up by people whose parents bought stock and lost the certificate in the attic decades ago, as was the case in Syracuse. Since there is no vested property interest there is nothing to sell, transfer, bequeath, or inherit, except maybe season tickets. For those reasons, a membership model is better than a shareholder model for increasing fan participation and ensuring democratic control by the most important stakeholders.

In any ownership model, it would be a mistake to shut out the players or the local government from decision-making. In either fan-owned model, a set number of director seats should be reserved for members/shareholders, a set number for the local community, and a set number for players. The players are the ones who make sports what they are. They deserve a voice in how each team is run.

Table 1. Ownership Model Comparison

(Click image to enlarge)

HOW TO GET THERE FROM HERE

The road to any sort of fan-ownership model for Major League Baseball will likely be long, winding, and fraught with danger for municipalities brave enough to take on billionaire owners. The first hurdle is the current owners. An owner giving a team away to a community or a fan group would be simple enough, at least in theory. Fans of the English soccer team Newcastle United have started taking pledges of money from fans to buy an interest—however small—in the club if the owner sells the team.27 But taking a team by force would be a whole different ballgame. In theory, cities or states could use the power of eminent domain to take ownership of sports franchises. This has been tried in the past, but never succeeded for different reasons. The City of Baltimore tried to use eminent domain to take over the Colts, but a court later ruled that Bob Irsay snuck out of town just in time, and since the team was no longer there, the city could not take over the team.28 The City of Oakland also tried to use eminent domain in the 1980s to prevent the Raiders from moving out of town. Eventually, a California appeals court held that the city taking over the Raiders would violate the US Constitution’s commerce clause because it would interfere with the interests of the other league owners.29

That notion brings up the next hurdle, the leagues themselves. As previously mentioned, every major sports league in the United States prohibits non-profit ownership among its members. Additionally, because Congress has granted the leagues exemptions from antimonopoly statutes (except for Major League Baseball, whose exemption is from the Supreme Court), there is little that can be done outside of an Act of Congress to force the leagues to accept municipal or non-profit owners. In theory, Congress could again raise the specter of eliminating those protections to strong-arm the leagues into changing their rules. They have tried it before, but the law failed in the end.30 Congress could also, potentially, simply make such provisions in the league charters illegal. With the lobbying power of the leagues and their owners, this route would be a long-shot without a massive amount of popular mobilization on the part of sports fans and affected citizens across the country. We are simply not there right now.

Perhaps a foothold is all that is needed. The Packers and soccer giants Real Madrid and Barcelona show that you do not need rich, individual ownership to succeed on the field. But right now, a fan-owned or community-owned team would have a massive uphill battle just to get on the field. This creates a chicken-and-egg question for supporters of fan-ownership: will there be a chance to show that these models can work within the leagues and slowly change more teams from private to fan-owned over time, or must there be a critical mass of cities or fan groups ready to make a move at once to even get in the door?

A FAN-OWNED FUTURE

What both fan-owned models share is that decisions will more likely be made in the interests of the club. By removing the profit motive, the focus becomes the short-term and long-term health and success of the team. One con is that in both models the people who end up in charge are usually just different wealthy people. And while that may not be ideal for a truly democratic team operation, the fact that they are held accountable to the rest of the voters means they are less likely to act out of self-interest than unaccountable private owners.

None of this is to say that current owners are all bad. There are plenty of owners out there who put a good product on the field, support the local community, and are willing to pay good money for good players. But in a sports franchise, just as in any other business, the profit motive is always there. That motive can be aligned with the interests of the fans and the local community, or it could run counter to those interests.

A future with more fan-owned teams is a future with a better fan experience. Bringing more democracy to professional sports teams means more value for and more input from the most important stakeholders. The current owners will be fine. Some might give the team to the community as Joan Kroc tried to do. Some might be bought out at a profit. Others might lose the team via Eminent Domain, meaning they would be paid fair market value for the franchise, almost certainly at a profit. But unlike many fans, these former owners won’t spend season after season despairing over decisions made by people who care more about profits than the team or the community. A fan-owned future means truly being part of the team.

STEPHEN R. KEENEY is a lifelong Reds fan. He graduated from Miami University in 2010 and from Northern Kentucky University’s Chase College of Law in 2013. He lives in Dayton, Ohio, as a union staff representative with his wife and two children. He has contributed to several SABR publications, and his article “The Roster Depreciation Allowance: How Major League Baseball Teams Turn Profits into Losses” was selected for SABR 50 at 50: The Society for American Baseball Research’s Fifty Most Essential Contributions to the Game.

Notes

1. Henry Druschel, “Imagining a Fan-Owned Team,” September 27, 2017, BeyondtheBoxscore.com, https://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/2017/9/27/16367428/public-ownership-baseball-teams-socialism-universal-basic-income. Ben Burgis, “Sports Team Should be Owned by the Public,” JacobinMag.com, December 28, 2019, https://jacobinmag.com/2019/12/nfl-cowboys-jerry-jones-football-owners-public-ownership.

2. Harvey Wasserman, “The Real Solution to Scumbag Sports Owners,” CounterPunch, April 30, 2014, https://www.counterpunch.org/2014/04/30/the-real-solution-to-scumbag-sports-owners/?fbclid=IwAR2569-v52qPgY_tTliQ-ImftGEBZc8uPjZqrTfWq_C42WEoR7giR3YHnD0.

3. Raffaele Poli, Loic Ravenel, and Roger Besson. “Attendance in Football Stadia (2003-2018),” CIES Football Observatory Monthly Report No. 44, April 2019 (International Centre for Sports Studies), available at https://football-observatory.com/IMG/pdf/mr44en.pdf.

4. “Green Bay Packers Shareholders,” Green Bay Packers, accessed April 3, 2021, https://www.packers.com/community/shareholders.

5. Lindsay Kramer, “Syracuse Chiefs Shareholders Approve Sale to New York Mets,” Syracuse.com, November 17, 2017, https://www.syracuse.com/chiefs/2017/11/syracuse_chiefs_shareholders_approve_sale_to_new_york_mets.html.

6. John O’Brien, “To Escape Fiscal Crisis, Syracuse Chiefs’ Board Considers Offers: One for $500,00, Another For $1 million.” Syracuse.com, September 30, 2013, https://www.syracuse.com/news/2013/09/syracuse_chiefs_board_considering_two_investment_proposals.html.

7. Roger Cormier, “No, The New York Mets’ Acquisition of the Syracuse Chiefs Did Not Go Smoothly,” GoodFundies.com, December 17, 2017, https://goodfundies.com/no-the-new-york-mets-acquisition-of-the-syracuse-chiefs-did-not-go-smoothly-dbacbd34b5cd.

8. Ricky Moriarty, “More Than 900 Syracuse Chiefs Owners to Get Back $2 Million in ‘Abandoned’ Stock,” Syracuse.com, December 1, 2017, https://www.syracuse.com/business-news/2017/12/more_than_900_syracuse_chiefs_owners_to_get_2_million_in_abandoned_stock_back.html.

9. “Wisconsin Timber Rattlers, Fox Cities Stadium Sold,” The Business News, January 23, 2021, https://www.readthebusinessnews.com/features/merger_acquisitions/wisconsin-timber-rattlers-fox-cities-stadium-sold/article_e1756586-4fb2-11eb-ba26-ff31134e2efe.html.

10. “German Soccer Rules: 50+1 Explained,” Bundesliga.com, accessed April 3, 2021, https://www.bundesliga.com/en/news/Bundesliga/german-soccer-rules-50-1-fifty-plus-one-explained-466583.jsp.

11. “Pricing: Membership Fees,” FC Bayern, accessed April 3, 2021, https://fcbayern.com/en/club/become-member/pricing.

12. “Apply for Membership,” Borussia Dortmund, accessed April 3, 2021, https://www.bvb.de/eng/BVB/Membership/Apply-for-membership.

13. Poli, Ravenel, and Besson, “Attendance in Football Stadia.”

14. Khalid Khan, “Cure or Curse: Socio Club Ownerships in Spanish La Liga,” Bleacher Report, June 11, 2010, https://bleacherreport.com/articles/404511-cure-or-curse-socio-club-ownerships-in-spanish-la-liga.

15. “Types of Card,” Real Madrid FC, accessed April 3, 2021, https://www.realmadrid.com/en/members/member-card/types-and-prices; “Become a Member, FC Barcelona, accessed April 3, 2021, https://www.fcbarcelona.com/en/club/members/become-member/registration-of-adult-members.

16. “Spain—List of Champions,” Rec Sport Soccer Statistics Foundation, accessed April 3, 2021, http://www.rsssf.com/tabless/spanchamp.html.

17. “History,” UEFA, accessed April 3, 2021, https://www.uefa.com/uefachampionsleague/history/.

18. “History: Winners,” UEFA, accessed April 3, 2021, https://www.uefa.com/uefachampionsleague/history/winners/.

19. “UEFA Club Coefficients,” UEFA, accessed Aril 3, 2021, https://www.uefa.com/memberassociations/uefarankings/club/#/yr/2021

20. Megan O’Matz, “Harrisburg Strikes Deal for Senators, City Will Pay $6.7 Million to Keep Baseball Team,” The Morning Call, July 8, 1995, https://www.mcall.com/news/mc-xpm-1995-07-08-3055425-story.html.

21. “Harrisburg Senators Sale Announced,” MiLB.com, May 16, 2007, http://www.milb.com/gen/articles/printer_friendly/milb/press/y2007/m05/d16/c244716.jsp.

22. “Panel Blocked Bid to Give Padres to City of San Diego,” LA Times, July 30, 1990, https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-07-30-sp-1027-story.html.

23. Dave Zirin, “Baseball’s Blues: It’s Not Just the Dodgers,” LA Times, April 22, 2011, https://www.latimes.com/sports/la-xpm-2011-apr-22-la-oe-zirin-dodgers-20110422-story.html.

24. The Green Bay Packers avoid this requirement because they were grandfathered in. They existed before the current rules were created, which apply only to new owners (known as “members” in the NFL Constitution, Article 3.2). The Packers were formed in 1919, the NFL (under a prior name) was formed in 1920, and the current NFL constitution dates back to 1970 when the AFL-NFL merger was completed.

25. For example, Eric Nusbaum, Stealing Home: Los Angeles, the Dodgers, and the Lives Caught in Between (New York: Hachette Book Group, 2020).

26. Neil deMause, “The Radical Case for Cities Buying Sports Teams, Not Sports Stadiums,” Vice.com, December 29, 2014, at https://www.vice.com/en/article/vvakva/the-radical-case-for-cities-buying-sports-teams-not-sports-stadiums.

27. “Newcastle United: Supporters Set Up a Fund to Buy Part of Premier League Club If Sold,” BBC.com, April 8, 2021, available at https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/56673354.

28. M. & C. Council of Baltimore v. B. Football C., 624 F. Supp. 278 (D. Md. 1986), available at https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/624/278/2305222/.

29. City of Oakland v. Oakland Raiders, 174 Cal.App.3d 414 (Ct. App. 1985), available at https://www.leagle.com/decision/1985588174calapp3d4141559.

30. Neil deMause, “The Radical Case for Cities Buying Sports Teams, Not Sports Stadiums,” Vice.com, December 29, 2014, at https://www.vice.com/en/article/vvakva/the-radical-case-for-cities-buying-sports-teams-not-sports-stadiums.

New York Giants stalwarts Christy Mathewson and John McGraw. (LIBRARY OF CONGRESS)

They open the door. They’re opening thirty doors at once, but I can only talk about mine. Air from 2040 goes out, and air from 1905 comes in. The first thing I do is cough. It smells like horseshit and coal smoke and a locker room after an Atlanta double-header. In 1905, New York City only — only! — has 4,000,00 people, but I don’t think any of ’em took a bath in the past week.

I figure it’ll be cold in the portal building, but it isn’t. It’s always 72 inside the portal itself, and the 1905 air in the foyer feels about the same. I step out into the past. To either side of me, the other Angels do the same. We’re all in slacks and jackets, shirts and ties. We’ll still look funny to the locals, but less than if we wore our usual 2040 clothes.

On the street, the men are in workmen’s clothes or gloomy wool suits with too many buttons and tiny lapels. Some wear cloth caps, others derbies. The women… It’s sad. Skirts down to the ground, blouses and jackets that cover the rest of ’em, hats like you wouldn’t believe.

A white-bearded guy stumps by the front window. I mean stumps — he’s got a peg leg like you’d see in a pirate movie. Keyshawn Fredericks, who’ll pitch for us tomorrow, stares. “Whoa!” he says. “I bet he fought in the Civil War!”

He’s probably right. Where we are, when we are, smacks me in the face like a giant salmon. Guys who’ve done this before told me how it is. But living it. The difference between hearing it and living it is like the one between a picture of a steak dinner and eating a steak dinner.

Eddie Morales gets out in front of us. He’s the manager; it’s his job. “Three o’clock local time,” he reminds us. “The buses’ll be here any minute to take us to the hotel. We’ll have dinner, get as much rest as we can, and then head for the Polo Grounds. We’ve got another game to win. Been a hell of a long year, but this one’ll give us something to brag about.”

We have to stand around for ten minutes before the buses show up. Yeah, plural — they have six-horse teams. Carriages, wagons, men on bikes, a few cars. Traffic in 1905 isn’t the same as it will be two lifetimes on, but there’s a lot of it.

We go out through the big open doors and climb on the buses. They’re painted on the sides — LOS ANGELES ANGELS, 2040 CHAMPIONS. People will know who we are anyway, from our clothes and because we average a lot bigger than they did in 1905. Somebody yells, “Matty’ll clock you clowns!” A big cheer goes up.

They yell other things, too. We got warned about that, and it’s true. It’ll be worse — louder, anyway — tomorrow at the Polo Grounds. That word we don’t say now? They scream it. Keyshawn and three or four other guys are African American, and Thabo’s from South Africa. They probably think he’s from South Carolina. They yell at him like he is.

Some of our Latinx players are dark, too — Adilson Bivar, especially. He’s from Sao Paulo, where a lot of the fireballers around the league are from. He takes the crap in stride. If we have a lead tomorrow, he’ll close.

The crowd doesn’t know what to make of Kaz Fukushima or Pong-ju Pak. They call them Chinamen or something like that but worse. Japan? Korea? Not on their radar, not that they have radar.

Kees was born in Amsterdam, and Ralph’s from Melbourne. The downtime people can’t tell that by looking, though, so they just hoot at them for being from 2040.

The buses start rolling, heading uptown. When traffic’s easy, we go a little faster than a walk. When it’s heavy, we move a lot slower. No traffic lights. Cops at big intersections. At the others? We’re on our own. Fun!

Keyshawn and I sit next to each other. He stares out the window. “It’s so white, man!” he says, and he’s not talking about the smoky air or the sootstained buildings. “So white. My people, they’re still down South picking cotton, I guess. Not slaves, but they might as well be.”

“My own great-great-greats come through Ellis Island about now,” I answer. “They finally see one Russian pogrom too many.”

“One what?”

“Race riot. Or religion riot. Whatever. 1905 Russians like Jews the way 1905 Southerners like black folks.”

He nods. “Gotcha.”

We go up Central Park West. Central Park looks like… Central Park. I’ve been there when we play the Yankees. Only big difference is what people wear.

When we go past 72nd, Keyshawn points to the fancy building on the west side of the street. “That’s the Dakota.”

I know what the Dakota is. “John Lennon lived there.”

“Yeah, him, too,” Keyshawn says. I look at him. He looks back at me. “Time and Again, man.” I saw some of the Netflarx stream, but Keyshawn reads science fiction. Old science fiction, even. What do you expect from a left-hander?

In Harlem I think I hear Spanish, but it’s Italian. The hole-in-the-wall shops and restaurants don’t look too different from how they will 135 years on — minus the LEDs and neon — and like Keyshawn said, everyone’s White.

We stop in front of the Mount Morris Hotel. We hop down from the buses, kinda stretch, and go inside to check in. The lights are electric, but dim.

The room. Bed’s okay, I guess. A glass and a basin and a pitcher on the dresser. Toilet? Bathtub? End of the hall. Line forms on the left!

No WiFi. No TV. No radio. Not even a landline. All we can bring back is our clothes, a change or two, and our uniforms. They superscan us before we enter the portal, same as at airports.

Gym? Weight room? Nope. The Giants won the toss. We came back. They didn’t come forward. When we play ’em, it’s by their rules. We make money off it. So do they. They think it’s a lot. Well, to them it is. And there’s the whole pride thing, on both sides of the time gap.

If we don’t die of boredom before we play. What do people do in hotel rooms like this? Chances are they go out and drink and screw. We can’t even do that. Or we’re not supposed to. That guy on the 2038 Orioles in 1909 Pittsburgh. No, no names. But they monitor us closer now.

Coaches bang on our doors at six. We troop down to the dining room. Nutrition isn’t everything it should be. But roast chicken, peas, and a baked potato. That’s not too bad. The bird’s even tasty. And one bottle of beer. Budweiser. Some things don’t change. Yeah, it tastes the way it’s supposed to.

Then back to our rooms. The coaches keep an eye on us. What else are coaches for?

I look out the window. It looks dark. Street lights aren’t everything they’re gonna be. I lie down on the bed and stare at the ceiling. After a while, I doze off. Nothing else to do.

I wake up an hour later. Down on the street, an oompah band — trumpets and tubas and bass drums — is playing as loud as it can. They warned us this kind of crap happens. Here-and-now people help the Giants however they can. If the guys from 2040 don’t get any shuteye, maybe they won’t play so good.

Uptime, we’d call the police. Here? Now? Half the chavs in that horrible band’re probably New York’s finest.

Eventually, they shut up and go away. Even more eventually, I fall asleep again. Two hours later, they come back. Sweet night, uh-huh.

* * *

Breakfast? Bacon, eggs fried in bacon grease, hash browns. Horrible for you, but it tastes good. Lots of coffee. We need coffee.

We board the buses again and head for the Polo Grounds. Eighth Avenue and 157th, across the river from where Yankee Stadium’ll be. Not this one, the one before. Only that one’s not there yet, either.

They haven’t started letting fans in, but there’s already a crowd up on Coogan’s Bluff waiting to watch for nothing. They boo us when they spy the buses. Keyshawn waves, just to rile them up some more. We go on in. The visitors’ locker room isn’t big enough to swing a cat. We jostle each other when we put on our unis.

Then we get our gear. The catcher’s masks are okay. The wire’s strong, and they even come down to protect the throat. No helmets to wear underneath, though, or at the plate. The catcher’s mitts are thick leather pancakes. No shinguards, dammit; Kaz shakes his head. Balloon protectors.

First baseman’s mitts are longer, flatter versions of what the catchers use. Fielders’ gloves? They’re gloves, like a soccer ’keeper wears, only with baby webs between the thumb and first finger.

A bunch of bats to choose from. Louisville Sluggers, different lengths and weights, but all heavy and thick-handled. “Never get any whip with these sorry things,” Mel Sturgeon grumbles. He hit 48 out this season, so he knows about whip.

“Just square it up. It’ll do what it does. That goes for everybody,” Eddie says, raising his voice a skosh. “Ball won’t jump, either. Did you look? Nobody on the Giants hit more than seven. Nobody in the Show even got into double figures.”

They’re little guys. They don’t know about launch angle. Even so, there’s a difference between seven and 48. Just a bit.

We go out to loosen up, get used to the 1905 equipment. My great-grandpa went to the Polo Grounds in the 1960s, when the Mets were new. He told me about it. This park is the one before that, though. It’s wood, with Y-shaped pillars every fifteen feet or so holding up the roof over the second deck. No fence in center field, just white posts holding up a waist-high rope or wire. People in carriages or cars can watch the game. They won’t see well — has to be 500 feet out there. Real short down both lines, though, same as in the park my great-grandpa saw.

The Giants are warming up, too. They eye us. We eye them. They’re wearing their Series uniforms, black with white caps and socks and a big white NY on the chest. Baggy wool flannel, but classy anyway. No numbers — nobody’s thought of those yet.

They look like they know what they’re doing. Well, they should. They went 105-48, then beat the A’s in five in the all-shutout World Series. Mathewson threw three of them. Won’t his arm be dead, facing us a few days later? I hope so.

I start playing catch to get loose. The third time Dave Bowyer, our third baseman, throws me the ball, I drop it. Never would with the glove I’m used to, but these tiny little things from 1905 give you no margin for error.

Eddie sees me do it. “Two hands, guys!” he yells. “Remember, two hands! Gotta make the plays!”

I feel like a jerk. And I feel even lousier when the Giants’ manager snickers at me. John McGraw — I looked him up online. Little stumpy guy; looks mean. He’s only thirty-two, so he might still play, but he’s put on weight.

The umps watch both teams warm up. Only two, not the six we’d have at a postseason game. No automated strike zone. No replay, either. Whatever they call, everybody’s stuck with it.

When I take grounders, the infield grass seems okay. The dirt… They’ll rake it before we start. Even so, it’s raunchier than anything I’ve played on since Little League. Same with the outfield: bumps and divots everywhere. You’ll get some exciting hops. Yeah, a few.

Look up old-time stats, you’ll see the 1905 Giants fielded .960. You think: Stone hands. That’s what I figured till I went back there. Put on one of those gloves, trot out on that field, and you don’t want to laugh at them any more. You want to tip your hat.

They’ve razzed us nonstop from Coogan’s Bluff since we arrived, but those guys are far enough away, we can pretty much ignore ’em. It gets harder after the stands start filling up. I wonder if any of my great-greats have figured out that baseball is a pretty good game and come uptown to watch. They wouldn’t know I was descended from them; not like Kaplan’s a rare name. It’d be pretty funny if they were here anyway, though. Anybody who isn’t White, the people in the seats scream at him. Some of what they scream. We’ve come a ways since 1905. We aren’t where we ought to be, but we aren’t where we were, either. Thank God.

Ladies? They’re worse than the men, or maybe just shriller.

And some of those people, maybe even screaming so they fit in, are recording the game with little tiny devices the folks from 1905’ll never notice. They’ll go up through the portal again afterwards, just like us. And the FOXSPN techs will stitch the footage together and stream it at a couple of benjamins a pop. Playing against the past is fun. Monetizing it? That’s profit!

Eddie and McGraw exchange lineup cards. The umps go over the ground rules. The PA announcer has a megaphone, not a mike. He bawls out the lineups to the crowd. The Giants take the field. Twenty-five or thirty thousand people scream their heads off.

“Play ball!” Hank O’Day says. He’s working the plate. Jack Sheridan handles the rest of the field.

“Dave Bowyer, third base!” Megaphone Man booms. And it’s a game.

* * *

Dave steps in. I’m hitting second, so I crouch on one knee swinging a bat in the on-deck circle to see what Mathewson’s throwing. Bresnahan, the Giants’ catcher, doesn’t crouch down as far as guys do now. He’s farther behind the plate than they perch now, too. O’Day stands right in back of him, looking over his head, not his inside shoulder.

Mathewson’s first pitch is a batting-practice fast-ball…except it’s right at the knees on the outside corner. Unhittable. “Strike one!” O’Day yells. As soon as Matty has the ball back, he winds up and fires again. This one’s maybe two miles an hour faster, and maybe — maybe — an inch outside. O’Day gives it to him. “Strike two!”

You see right away why he’s so good. Take a little off, put a little on, send it exactly where you want to… Old-timers go on about Greg Maddux. Like that.

Dave leans over the plate a little. Mathewson’s next one’s up and in. Then he hits that outside corner again. Dave gets the bat on it, but dribbles one to second.

“Joshua Kaplan, second base!” the PA man shouts. I step into the left-hand box against a Hall of Famer. Weird.

He throws the first one right at my hipbone. I start to buckle — and it breaks back over the inside corner. O’Day calls it a strike. Well, it is. Bresnahan chuckles as he tosses the ball back to Mathewson. “Never seen a fadeaway before, huh?” he says. Then he says another word, the one Jews like just as well as black people like the one the crowd’s been screeching at Keyshawn.

“We call it a screwball, ya dumb mick shithead,” I answer. I’d never do that in 2040. I know better. If you think we’re messed up now, though, going back in time shows you how we got that way.

People don’t throw the screwball much any more. It tears up your arm. Nobody enjoys microsurgery every couple-three years. But Matty has a good one. Two pitches later, I fly out to center. I think I’ve hit it hard, but it doesn’t go anywhere. Dead ball, yeah.

“Batting third, Mel Sturgeon, left field!”

Mel’s a lefty, too; he’s 6-4, 225. He makes you thoughtful when he digs in, in other words. Mathew-son gives him one low and away, and Mel goes with it. He flips it down the left-field line. Only about 280 there, so it lands in the seats. He trots around the bases with a big grin on his face. We’re up a run.

Matty kicks the dirt once. He waits for them to throw the ball back out of the stands, which they sure don’t in my time. Then he gets Pong-ju to ground to short. In come the Giants. Out we go.

“Roger Bresnahan, catcher!” the PA guy says. The catcher leading off? Okay.

Bresnahan steps in. He stares at Keyshawn. “Watcha got?” he asks, and adds that other word, the one you don’t say in 2040.

Keyshawn fires a fastball, maybe 94, at his belly button. Bresnahan folds up like a clasp knife. Ball one. Bresnahan looks out again. Keyshawn puts a curve on the outside edge. Bresnahan flails. He can’t hit it, any more than you can eat soup with a fork.

And Keyshawn gives him full gas, 99 or so, right at his coconut. I don’t know how Bresnahan falls out of the way, but he does. As he’s picking himself up, a little at a time, Keyshawn says, “You don’t want to call me that again, White boy.”

Bresnahan takes half a step toward him. He stops even before Kaz can get in front of him. He’s 5-9 or so, 190 or 200. He’s giving away ten inches and sixty pounds. He may be a racist so-and-so, but he doesn’t have a death wish.

O’Day also hustles out there. He’s an ump who works hard. Good for him. “Knock it off, both of you,” he says. “Roger, you knew they played Negroes. Get back in the box.” He turns to Keyshawn. “Enough from you, too. You made your point.”

Baseball starts again. The American game, right? Two pitches later, Bresnahan bounces to me. I make sure I watch it into my tiny glove, and I throw him out. The next guy fans. Mike Donlin, who hits third, would be the MVP if they have one in 1905. He gets good wood on a fastball, but lines out to Sturgeon.

We put a guy on in the second — bad-hop single over Art Devlin’s head at third — but don’t do anything with him. They get their first hit in the second, when Bill Dahlen pokes one past me. I just touch it. With a real glove, it’s an out, but not with the toy I’m using. Keyshawn catches Devlin looking to strand Dahlen.

Then Keyshawn hits. No DH in 1905. He looks dangerous up there. Maybe he is, if he makes contact. He doesn’t. Mathewson does: he politely sticks one of those 78 mph fastballs in Keyshawn’s ribs. Keyshawn drops the bat and goes to first without even looking at him.

Dave hits into a fielder’s choice. Gilbert’s throw is going to first before Keyshawn gets close. Just as well. I single into right. Dave stops at second. Up comes Mel with ducks on the pond.

Bresnahan trudges up the dirt path from the plate to the mound. Yeah, like the parks in Phoenix and Detroit and Philadelphia now, trying to look old-timey. I know what he’s telling Mathewson. Don’t let this guy beat you. Matty nods. Bresnahan swats him on the butt and gets behind the plate again.

Mathewson stretches, fires. Bresnahan’s mitt pops. “Strike one!” O’Day yells. Mel steps out. I don’t blame him. That isn’t well-placed junk. That’s gas, not quite as fast as Keyshawn but awful close. Christy’s got the big arm. With the dead ball and the big field, he just doesn’t use it all the time. He saves it for when he needs it.

Mel gets back in. More heat, this time two inches off the plate. Silk O’Day calls it a ball. Bresnahan jaws at him without turning around. Mathewson throws that fadeaway. Mel fouls it back onto the roof. It rolls down and they put it into play again. It’s scuffed? Dirty? They don’t care.

The next one makes Mel skip rope. Even count. Matty paints the outside corner, has to be 95. Mel’s frozen. The ump punches him out. He shakes his head as he goes back to the dugout. Pong-ju hits the first pitch hard, but Donlin runs it down in left-center.

Keyshawn gets a quick out in the bottom of the third. When Matty steps in, they look at each other for a second. They both know what’s coming. And it does. Keyshawn drills him in the butt, not too hard. Christy takes his base without a word. He gets away with hitting Keyshawn, and Keyshawn gets away with hitting him. Yeah, baseball.

Bresnahan’s sitting dead red when the count gets to 1-2. Keyshawn throws him a slow curve straight from one of the Dutch Spinners. Probably learned it from Kees. Roger almost comes out of his shoes swinging, but he’s a foot and a half out in front. He slams down the bat and cusses all the way to the dugout. George Browne, the right fielder, flies out on the first pitch.

Keyshawn’s due up again in the fifth. Eddie asks, “Got one more in ya?” Keyshawn nods. Eddie says, “Go get ’em, Tiger.” Keyshawn fans. They don’t pay him to hit.

Bottom of the fifth, the Giants put two on with one out. An error, a sharp single. Our pen heats up. The crowd laughs; they don’t play that way in 1905. Billy Gilbert, the Giants’ second baseman, grounds one up the middle. I dive. I get lucky — it sticks in the glove. I give Pong-ju a backhand flip from my belly, and he turns the DP. Inning over.

A split second after Pong-ju throws to first, Devlin, who’s running, knocks him sideways. In 2040, that ain’t kosher. It is here. The 1905 guys got warnings beforehand. So did we. Pong-ju just gets up and goes in.

Devlin picks himself up, too. “Hell of a play,” he says to me, and then, “Asshole.”

“Up yours, too,” I answer. He barks an almost-laugh.

Top of the sixth, Mel smacks one into the gap in right-center. Donlin can’t get it. Neither can Browne. It goes almost to the rope. Mel’s big, but he can motor. He zooms through a stop sign and beats the throw home. Insurance run.

Last four innings, we whipsaw the Giants: righty-lefty-right-lefty. They can’t get used to anybody. They put a couple of guys on, but don’t really threaten. McGraw lifts Mathewson in the eighth. Matty’s no automatic out, but Sammy Strang’s a real hitter. He works a ten-pitch walk, in fact; the game slows down while they throw back the foul balls. Doesn’t help, because Bresnahan pops up.

Joe McGinnity pitches the ninth. We get one more run on two singles and a sac fly. The second single’s mine, so I feel good.

Adilson closes out the bottom of the ninth in order. Fans start filing out unhappily. Coogan’s Bluff empties. “Final score, Los Angeles Angels from 2040, three; New York Giants, nothing. Winning pitcher, Fredericks. Losing pitcher, Mathewson,” the PA announcer bellows. He’s never heard of saves. Adilson gets one anyhow.

We clean up. We change. The Giants want nothing to do with us: McGraw’s a sore loser. We go back to the hotel. Can’t wait to pass through the portal again. The past is kinda interesting to visit, but you wouldn’t want to live there.

HARRY TURTLEDOVE has been a baseball fan since 1956, when dinosaurs like the PCL Los Angeles Angels and Hollywood Stars roamed the earth. He’s been a stats-crazed baseball fan since he started collecting baseball cards a couple of years later. A 50-plus year addiction to APBA baseball sure doesn’t help. This shows up in his writing in the current story, in earlier ones like “Batboy,” “Designated Hitter,” “The House That George Built,” and “The Star and the Rockets,” and in the Depression-era semipro-baseball fantasy novel, The House of Daniel.

What does climate change have to do with baseball? There are various factors: First, the relationship of climate to athlete health; second, the relationship of climate to analytics; third, the relationship of fans to the weather; and fourth, the relationship of weather to the business of baseball, as new construction of ballparks will have to take climate into account.1

In the past, many fans, rather than attending in person, have opted to watch games via video, whether on TV or streaming at home, or in local venues offering the broadcast, such as bars, resorts, etc. But in the 2020 season we saw the first time MLB fans had no in-person option. The COVID-19 pandemic mandated social distancing, resulting in the closing of schools, theaters, stadiums, restaurants, and other places where people gather. The 2020 season start was delayed, and when games finally did resume it was for a truncated 60-game season, played in empty stadiums. This was a first for Major League Baseball, where fans were forced, for the first time, to endure a period with no baseball at all not because of economic work stoppages or weather, but because of a pandemic, and then when the season started, to watch their favorite teams on TV only.2 Some stadiums were filled with cardboard cutouts instead of real people.3 Perhaps having seen the disruption on a grand scale that a global phenomenon like a pandemic can wreak on baseball, we are ready to envision what climate change might require of the sport.

MYSTERIES OF CLIMATE CHANGE

Before we get into baseball specifics, let us establish some basics about climate that will be relevant to our discussion. In 1972 I said that “a hotter world climate due to the ‘greenhouse effect’ will happen by the year 2030.”4 I am now adding to it a prediction of a “windier” climate. Why? There are contradictory forces at work on the future of weather. First, Nature has its own cycle of climate change, and second, human activities are changing the atmosphere. Let us consider Nature vs. Human contributions to climate.

Carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere has risen by 40% in the latest half-century due to human activities. However, atmospheric temperature for this time period has risen only a few percent, not anywhere close to 40%. This is a low correlation between carbon dioxide concentrations and temperature of the Earth’s atmosphere. Other forces must be at work. What could they be? The study of ice cores from the Greenland ice cap suggest that the Earth has previously experienced four “ice ages,” and that we are “overdue” for another one. The layered structure of the ice cores includes layers that go back 400,000 years. The ratio of isotopes of oxygen in the ice—namely oxygen-16 to oxygen-18—reveals the existence of these previous “ice ages.” The ice core data are compelling evidence that some large-scale changes in Earth’s climate are natural phenomena.5 Nature’s climate changes occur in periods of tens of thousands of years. We can’t make climate policies based on such long periods of time. It is apparent that in the near-term, the direction of the change will be towards a hotter climate, and that’s what we must concern ourselves with.

My judgment is that the forces of Nature are getting ready for an ice age in the long term, in spite of human greenhouse gas emissions. But for the near term, we are due for unstable weather patterns, as the Earth’s climate does a rollercoaster ride down into an ice age, due to arrive in a millennium or more. There will be warming spells that suddenly change into cooling spells—and vice-versa—where these spells last for hundreds of years, thus making both “changeable” and “unalterable” seem to be correct judgments about climate.

It seems self-evident that more information is needed about the temperature and the cloud cover of the Earth. For this reason I have made the following proposal for a weather observatory on the moon, which Topps commemorated with a special edition baseball card on January 27, 2021.6

THE NEXT FRONTIER: WEATHERSTATIONMOON OBSERVATORY

As I wrote in 1972, the “real value of Space will come in the area of special technologies and scientific research.”7 As it relates to harnessing space exploration for purposes of climate study, “the fabrication of special electronic components, the relaying of TV and other communication media by satellite, measurements of the Earth’s resources by infrared photography, surveillance of weather by satellite.. .are Space’s possibilities.”8 I have suggested that NASA deploy an unmanned weather station on the Moon to track climate changes. WeatherStationMoon would take the Earth’s true temperature, in totality and in its regions, by telescopic observation of the infrared light emissions coming from the Earth. This will measure “climate warming.” The station would also measure the Earth’s cloud cover, in totality and in its regions, by telescopic observations of the visible and ultraviolet light reflections from the Earth’s cloud cover (the Earth’s “albedo”). An increase in cloud cover will make the Earth’s climate colder.

An increase in greenhouse gases and an increase in cloud cover are opposing forces to each other. It is uncertain which will prevail. However, I believe that the opposition of these forces will make the near-term climate unstable, and likely more windy. This may or may not determine the future of climate. However, if a WeatherStationMoon was in operation, it could contribute to answering the question. Heat Energy is the flow of thermal energy between bodies of different temperatures; thus there is a distinction between heat energy and temperature.9 The earth is likely to experience an overall temperature rise, but it could happen without an equal distribution of heat. Thus, the poles could become warmer and the equator cooler, without any overall temperature rise, or vice versa. This is yet a question for WeatherStationMoon to answer, if allowed to come to fruition.

Both detailed temperature mapping and detailed cloud cover movements would aid weather forecasting. Obviously, better long-range weather forecasts greatly help in commerce, shipping, air travel, virus and pathogen movements, military strategies, and planning all outdoor sports. The unmanned Weather-StationMoon would only need a small telescope, a solar array to generate electricity, and a battery pack to store electricity for the Moon’s night, which is 14 Earth days long. The proposed WeatherStationMoon could be placed on the Moon by remote control, as the Mars vehicle was, or placed there by the astronauts of Project Artemis—which will send a mission to the Moon in 2024. From any landing site on the Moon, the Earth appears 3.5 times bigger than a full Moon appears from the Earth, changing phases of full-to-new Earth every 28 days. A moon-based observatory will see all the continents every day, and give a total picture of the Earth, as well as detailed parts of it, providing critical climate data to the United States and the Paris Accord Nations, who are in the process of drawing up economic solutions to climate change. I call upon the Paris Accord scientists to support such a project, whether by NASA, some other country, or private enterprise. Climate change should not become politicized. Observations from the Moon, if taken over years, should yield important data that could show whether the Earth’s climate changes are mostly due to Nature’s forces or human activities, and could serve to measure the effectiveness of government policies in the wake of the Paris Accords.

CLIMATE CHANGE EFFECTS ON BASEBALL

Now that we have some understanding of the large scale picture of climate change, let us talk about how the hotter and more volatile climate we will experience in the coming years will affect the sport of baseball. Did you know that as an elastomer, a baseball will lose elasticity in high temperatures, thus there is an optimal temperature range for the baseball’s flexibility?10 As we are learning, even small changes in the ball can have large effects on the field.11 But the coming warmer climate will likely adversely affect the player (and spectator) more than the baseball. Baseball, as an industry, will need to make the following adjustments:

• Baseball stadiums will need new roof design
  Sudden adverse weather events will become more frequent in our near-term climate. Roofed stadiums will be a defense against such events as dust storms, very high temperatures, and very high humidities, all of which can reduce attendance. The domed stadium has been a developing design since before the climate change issue arose. These roofs should incorporate solar energy. I wrote in 1980 that “possibly no single energy system has greater public support than solar heating. It is desirable, ultimately inevitable, and presently capable of conserving conventional heating fuels. Solar heating may have the potential to displace almost half the present consumption of natural gas and about 10% of oil-derived fuels.”12 Solar architecture will be the wave of the future for stadium construction.
• Player facilities should be “on the roof” instead of in the basement
  Present stadium designs place most player facilities deep underground, and that is injurious to the health of the players. Such facilities as locker rooms, training gyms, medical stations, physical rehab facilities, and conference rooms can be difficult to ventilate. This can lead to poor air quality from viruses, bacteria, dust, cleaning agents, and other chemicals, leading to headaches, mood changes, and airborne illnesses.
• Ventilation will be more important than filtration
  It has been well established by air quality studies that in closed or indoor spaces, “ventilation” of air is far more important to health than is the “filtration” of air. Ventilation, which brings in fresh air, has less “air drag over persons” than does filtration, which recirculates air. The latest studies have come from COVID-19-related research on eliminating viruses from hospitals, restaurants, schools, and so on.
• Rebuilding and retrofitting of stadiums should be done quickly
  And it can be. The 1950s is an example. During the 1950s the major leagues expanded across America from 16 teams located mostly in the American Northeast, to what is now teams spread across the continent. Almost every team built a new stadium during the “epoch of expansion.” We now face another reason for the physical reformation of stadiums in baseball, which might be called the “epoch of climate adaptation.”
• Regional contests should be favored
  In the future, fans may consider “regional contests” more interesting than East coast vs. West coast games. From a historical perspective, many of the most fierce baseball rivalries have been from teams with regional proximity: Yankees/ Red Sox in the Northeast, Cubs/Cardinals in the Midwest, and so on. In the heydey of the 1950s there were fierce “crosstown” rivalries between the Brooklyn Dodgers, New York Giants, and New York Yankees—and the Dodgers and Giants continue that rivalry on the West Coast today.13 Thus, regionalism could be good for MLB’s economics, not only because it would require teams to make less cross-continental travel, but because of heightened fan interest.
• Long-Stay Scheduling will be economically favored
  In an age of unsettled weather, air travel will need to be reduced for reasons of safety and economics. This would favor long-stay scheduling, with regional teams playing in blocks of 5 to 7 games, instead of the 2- to 4-game series the schedule currently favors. If weather conditions are unpredictable, and rescheduling becomes increasingly expensive, why wouldn’t team ownership elect long-stay scheduling?
• Spring Training sites may need to relocate
  If the weather in Florida becomes too humid and Arizona too hot, MLB teams will need to relocate their spring training sites, and rather quickly. Many teams have already made the move from Florida to Arizona recently, as well as consolidating their Arizona facilities nearer to Phoenix. Teams would need to coordinate their moves, as well, since each team needs others to play exhibitions against. But to where? California could become too dry, etc.
• Players may experience loss of muscle power
  As temperature rises, the body will need to cool itself more. Most body cooling is accomplished by water evaporation from the lungs, not by sweating as is commonly believed. This will increase cardiovascular work of respiration, and that, in turn, will reduce body energy available for playing ball. Even if there is just a few percent drop in skeletal muscle energy the professional athlete will feel it.14
• Player stats will be affected
  A generally hotter climate will lessen air density. This will cause fly balls to travel further, fastballs to be faster, curveballs to curve less, and spin rates of pitches to be higher. These factors will cause pitchers to change their usage percentages on their pitch selection, and probably continue to fuel MLB’s “launch angle revolution.”
• Eras in baseball will become statistically incomparable
  Baseball statistical comparisons will change. In addition to the changes mentioned above due to hotter air, if player health is chronically impaired even by a small amount, “metrics” will follow the decline in their health. This affects the ability of teams to project success for players and draft picks, for coaches and players seeking to improve or diagnose the cause of slumps, and of fans to enjoy the performance of their favorite players. If the statistical record becomes meaningless for comparing players across eras (and some would say it has already become so), perhaps the “intangibles” of character, “clutch” performance, and teammate support will become more important in comparing players of the future with players of yesteryear?
• Personal pollution-detection devices will become popular
  Health concerns will foster a new industry for wearable pollution-detection devices. These are solid-state devices the size of a wrist watch that measure particles and gases in the air. They can be plugged into a cell phone for data transmission to others. In theory, millions of people could monitor our environment in real time. Many companies are making such devices. The technology is already here, but the popularity of the devices remains to be created. (If the capability were built into one of the name-brand “smart” watches like the Apple Watch or Fitbit, the technology would instantly gain millions of users.15)
• Teams must prepare to handle an increase in respiratory illnesses
  As the Earth moves into more unstable weather, it will become windier. A windier climate will mean more dust in the atmosphere, and more respiratory stress for players (and spectators). Inhaling very fine dust particles inactivates the cilia in a person’s mucous membranes, allowing the particles to enter the lungs. Asthma, or chemical emphysema, will result. Will the longevity of career necessary to reach the Hall of Fame be attainable for the players of the future, if air quality is so negatively affected?

CLIMATE POLICIES NOW

The question remains: if we want to mitigate the circumstances outlined above, what can we do? I have proposed an energy policy for the United States that will lessen human contribution to climate instability. This policy is the result of some fifty years of involvement with energy and environmental issues, beginning with my book The Energy Crisis in 1972. Among the steps we should take:

Nuclear electricity should be developed by making small reactors of no more than 300 megawatts.

Wind electricity should be harnessed by a “North American Off-Shore Wind Alliance” between Canada, the United States, and Mexico.

Solar power is best harnessed in “solar architecture” for heating and cooling of homes.

Abandon biofuels since they take more energy inputs than they yield as a fuel.

Recycling capabilities must be included in manufacturing to lessen resource consumption and to lessen waste disposal sites.

I believe that lessening the human contribution to climate change can only begin in meaningful ways when we have more accurate information about the Earth’s temperature and its cloud cover dynamics. That’s the best way to get consensus among the peoples of the Earth for policy-making support.

DR. LAWRENCE ROCKS has had a research career that has spanned from analytical chemistry to sports biochemistry to novel antiviral research. His 1972 book, The Energy Crisis, published just prior to the 1973 oil crisis, was widely acclaimed by both national television and print media, and influenced the creation of the US Department of Energy during the Carter Administration. He has been featured as an energy expert in the New York Times, Time Magazine, and National Review, and he has addressed the United Nations, and appeared on shows spanning many decades from the Today show to MLB Network. Dr. Rocks has been honored multiple times with commemorative baseball cards, including the 2019 official Lawrence Rocks Topps Allen and Ginter card, a 2020 Topps of the Class card, a 2021 Topps Now WeatherStationMoon card, and an Upper Deck WeatherStationMoon hockey card. On Earth Day 2021, the New York Islanders honored Dr. Rocks with a special commemorative silver hockey puck. Dr. Rocks, Professor Emeritus at Long Island University, received an MS in chemistry from Purdue University and his DSc (Doctor of Science) from Technische Hochschule Vienna. He and his wife Marlene are supporters of Ronald McDonald House Charities and have one son, Burton.

A Broadcast from the Future

Hello, everybody! The game Is about to start. Looking at the scoreboard weather conditions, I see:

Temperature 98 degrees Fahrenheit, Wind 15 MPH, Humidity 60%, and the Air Quality Index at 26 “Good.” But the big picture Weather Map shows a chance of a wind storm coming our way. The Caution Sign says a roof closure may be announced shortly.

Well, here comes the first pitch. Ball one. A 103 MPH fastball. Next pitch. There’s a fly ball to dead center field, and over the 415 mark for a home run. It must have gone 500 feet. Well, that’s the thin air for you, balls are thrown faster, and balls are batted further.

Next batter. An inside pitch. A curve ball that didn’t curve much. It had high spin rate, but it didn’t grip the thin air, so it didn’t curve. Here’s the next pitch. A ground ball past shortstop for a single. Wow. That grounder had speed. The hard infield made for a grounder too fast to field. Next batter stands in. Wait. A stolen base. Man on second base. Runner calls time. Needs to catch his breath. In high humidity he needs to breathe more for body cooling, and he needs to regain his oxygen level. Okay. Here’s the pitch. A line drive to right center field, one bounce and off the wall for a double. One run in. It certainly looks like we’re in for yet another high scoring game, folks.

Hold it. Folks, the wind is picking up. The umpire is coughing so much he has to call time. It looks like that wind storm is arriving. The roof will take ten minutes to close. It’s getting dark and dusty in here. The air conditioning will take time to cool and clear such a big volume of air as our ballpark holds. So, let’s count on a 20 minute delay.

The Sequence of Chemical Events Causing Respiration Stress

1. Pollutants inactivate both lung enzymes and hemoglobin in red cells.
2. Oxygen blood-levels drop, in consequence.
3. The involuntary nervous system responds to increase the breathing rate.
4. Heart and respiration rates increase to raise oxygen blood-levels.
5. Adrenalin is released to activates the hormone system of the brain.
6. The voluntary nervous system is activated to help in respiration.
7. Extra breathing produces extra body heat.
8. Extra body heat is dissipated by lung evaporation of water.
9. Lung cooling causes even more work for the cardiovascular system.
10. Muscle-oxygen levels require the absorption of extra oxygen.
11. An exhaustion is felt at the conscious level.
12. Muscle coordination, from eyesight to movement, is impaired.
13. Physical performance, and emotional moods, become impaired.
14. A heart attack becomes increasingly more likely.

Photo credit

Topps/Allen & Ginter commemorative card of Dr. Rocks

Notes

1. Hot Stove, “DeJong, Dr. Rocks discuss climate,” MLB Network, January 28, 2021. https://www.mlb.com/video/dejong-dr-rocks-discuss-dimate.

2. Bob Nightengale.,”Coronavirus: Doctor says baseball can ‘lead the way’ on coronavirus response,” USA Today, March 18, 2020.

3. I was one of them. Ken Davidoff, “The drastic 2021 changes MLB teams should make to combat COVID-19,” New York Post, December 9, 2020.

4. Lawrence Rocks, Richard Runyon, The Energy Crisis (New York: Crown Publishers, 1972), 177.

5. Jessica Stoller-Conrad, “Core questions: An introduction to ice cores,” NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, August 14, 2017. https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2616/core-questions-an-introduction-to-ice-cores.

6. Topps Now WeatherStationMoon commemorative baseball card, January 27, 2021. https://www.topps.com/cards-collectibles/topps-now/weather-stationmoon-mlb-topps-now-regcard-wsm-1.html.

7. Rocks, Runyon, The Energy Crisis, 129.

8. Rocks, Runyon, The Energy Crisis, 129.

9. Lawrence Rocks, Developing Your Chemistry Fundamentals (Tulsa: PennWell Publishers, 1979).

10. CBS New York. Steve Overmyer report. November 9, 2017. “Cardinals’ De-Jong, Renowned Scientist Test Effects of Heat on Baseball.”

11. Meredith Wills, “How One Tiny Change to the Baseball May Have Led to Both the Home Run Surge and the Rise in Pitcher Blisters,” The Athletic, June 6, 2018. https://theathletic.com/381544/2018/06/06/how-one-tiny-change-to-the-baseball-may-have-led-to-both-thehome-run-surge-and-the-rise-in-pitcher-blisters.

12. Dr. Lawrence Rocks, Fuels for Tomorrow. (Tulsa: PennWell Publishers, 1980.)

13. Carl Erskine, Burton Rocks, What I Learned from Jackie Robinson. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2005).

14. John Brewer, Run Smart: Using Science to Improve Performance and Expose Marathon Running’s Greatest Myths. Bloomsbury Sport, 2017. https://research.stmarys.ac.uk/id/eprint/2102

15. Emily Vogels, “About One in Five Americans Uses a Smart Watch or Fitness Tracker,” Pew Research, January 9, 2020. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/01/09/about-onein-five-americans-use-a-smart-watch-or-fitness-tracker.