A question has been bothering me. A question I have been asking on twitter.
Why won’t the Mets support Ukraine?
It wouldn’t take much. Maybe change their icon to blue and yellow. Just let the world know the Mets have a soul and understand how this situation is terrible and wrong.
So you may say – they are a baseball team. Why do they need to do that?
My answer – the Mets like to pretend they care about things. Need examples? Here’s today…
Surely an important cause, and how nice to recognize members of their organization.
But even that graphic – they could have made that orange a Ukrainian yellow. Subtle, but would let me know.
Or what about the time the Mets put on a big show to show how much they cared about Black Lives Matter?
The Mets came out and held hands and put #BLM on the mound. The next day – that space went to advertise cars.
Oh but Shannon, the Mets would love to but they can’t because they are in a league and blah blah reasons and excuses.
Fair enough, let me kick this up a level to Manfred, Steve Cohen and the other owners. Here’s an article in Variety. The bold is mine.
The U.K. Premier League soccer tournament has suspended its agreement with its Russian broadcast partner and will donate £1 million ($1.3 million) to support the people of Ukraine.
“The Premier League and its clubs today unanimously agreed to suspend our agreement with Russian broadcast partner Rambler (Okko Sport) with immediate effect and to donate £1 million to support the people of Ukraine,” the league said in a statement on Tuesday.
“The League strongly condemns Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. We call for peace and our thoughts are with all those impacted. The £1 million donation will be made to the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) to deliver humanitarian aid directly to those in need.”
“This action follows a weekend of matches displaying League-wide support for Ukraine. All club captains wore special armbands and fans joined players, managers, match officials and club staff in a moment of reflection and solidarity before kick-off at each match,” the statement added.
“Big screens displayed ‘Football Stands Together’ against the backdrop of the blue-and-yellow colours of the Ukrainian flag. These words were also shown on LED perimeter boards during matches.”
“This message of solidarity was visible to fans around the world across Premier League digital channels and via match broadcasts. This is in addition to the numerous ways in which clubs continue to display their support,” the statement concluded.]
So Mets, why can’t you just use some yellow in your social media?
I have my theories, and my readers are smart and can probably connect the dots. The answer is always the same reason.
Does anyone changing their social media icon to blue and yellow actually do anything? Does me posting on a dopey blog stop a little boy from crying as he carries his backpack over the border with Poland? Does me tweeting at a baseball team stop a man from digging through the rubble of his bombed out home? (both of which are stories I saw on CNN that made me actually cry)
Of course not.
But why NOT do it? That’s my question for you Mets. Why NOT do it?
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Meanwhile, the Players have been trying to look cool. Here’s an example I saw on Bob Nightengale’s twitter account
Hey that’s mighty nice! Thank you players….
….just one more thing….
According to CBS Sports, “The minimum salary was $570,500 in 2021.”
Let’s do some very lazy math. There are 30 teams. There were 26 players on each team at any one time. That’s 780 salaries being drawn at the Major League level.
Let’s assume none of those players are making say $40,000,000 like Max Scherzer. All 780 are making the minimum.
$570,500 times 780 is $444,990,000.
The players donated $500,000. $444,990,000/500,000 = 889.98 per player. Lets call is $890. Nice….but again these guys make half a million (or more!) a year.
Maybe you don’t make $500,000. Maybe you make say $50,000 to keep the lazy math easy. So, this would be like you donating $89 to the baseball charity. Hey that’s nice. Appreciate it. But people are shelling out $110 to do a Mets themed booze cruise with t-shirts so let’s not act like $89 is all that much money in the scheme of things. And if you make $140,000,000 over 6 years like Javy Baez who booed the fans….$890 is not all that much money. Not at all.
(Same point applies to the Premier League donating $1,000,000. Lots of money for you and I, not so much for a league that had $6,300,000,000 in revenue in 2019. But they are lapping the Mets so far.)
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So that’s what I have for you today. Why won’t the Mets support Ukraine? I am sure you will figure it out. I will go back to posting Darryl Strawberry themed rerun posts and alternate caps.
As Bono once said “am I bugging you? I don’t mean to bug ya. OK Edge, play the blues…”
