The biggest problem with being a socialist, besides getting your hands on toilet paper or food, is that you want to socialize everything. Bernie Sanders is hopping mad at Major League baseball for contracting some minor league teams and is threatening a socialist government take-over of all professional baseball. I guess it wouldn’t make the Phillies suck any more, but fans of successful franchises will probably be disappointed with “government ball.”
Look out Florida Fire Frogs, as Baseball America reports, your days may be numbered:
The Professional Baseball Agreement (PBA) between Major League Baseball and minor league teams expires at the end of the 2020 season. But if a new MLB proposal were to become reality, more than three dozen cities with affiliated minor league teams will lose those teams a year from now and thousands of minor league players will be out of work as well.
MLB has offered a proposal that, if adopted, would reduce Minor League Baseball from 160 teams—not counting the complex league teams that are wholly MLB-owned—to 120 beginning in 2021.
This MLB plan triggered Bernie’s socialist instincts and he raged:
.@MLB is proposing to cut 42 Minor League Baseball clubs.
This has nothing to do with what’s good for baseball and everything to do with greed.
It would destroy thousands of jobs and devastate local economies.
I’m urging @MLB Commissioner Manfred to stop this proposal. pic.twitter.com/89AZduYrlT
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) November 25, 2019
“Shutting down 25 percent of Minor League Baseball teams, as you have proposed, would be an absolute disaster for baseball fans, workers and communities throughout the country. Not only would your extreme proposal destroy thousands of jobs and devastate local economies, it would be terrible for baseball,” wrote Bernie.
Come on now, these are single-A teams that MLB is considering ditching.
“Let’s be clear. Your proposal to slash the number of minor league teams has nothing to do with what is good for baseball, but it has everything to do with greed. Your proposal to throw about 1,000 ball players out of work comes less than three months after an appeals court ruled that Minor League Baseball players could move forward with a class action lawsuit seeking higher wages,” continued Bernie.
Getting rid of 1,000 schlubs who will never play in the majors before they get a court to force MLB to pay them more than they’re worth, sounds like it’s great for baseball.
“In other words, instead of paying Minor League Baseball players a living wage, it appears that the multi-millionaire and billionaire owners of Major League Baseball would rather throw them out on the street no matter how many fans, communities and workers get hurt in the process,” Bernie wrote.
How dare a private entity not pay irrelevant workers more than their contribution dictates?
Speaking of which, Bernie then threatened government action if MLB doesn’t start overpaying for workers:
“If this is the type of attitude that Major League Baseball and its owners have then I think it’s time for Congress and the executive branch to seriously rethink and reconsider all of the benefits it has bestowed to the league including, but not limited to, its anti-trust exemption,” wrote Bernie.
And that’s just the beginning. Clearly Bernie has grand plans for the federal government to takeover all professional baseball to ensure that player salary is not tied to ability or drive.
As luck would have it, Def-Con News got an exclusive peek at Sanders’ plan to nationalize professional baseball. Tickets to games will be free because it is a basic human right to watch sports. All stadiums will have only one bathroom with no toilet paper so people will wait days in line. The concession stands won’t serve beer and only occasionally offer food, mostly rotten vegetables, but sometimes wild rabbit.
We also got a look at some of the new teams:
Nationalized League:
Atlanta Athiests
Chicago Che Guevaras
Cincinnati Communists
Los Angeles Lenins
Pittsburgh Politburo
Anti-American League:
Boston Borscht
Baltimore Breadlines
Minnesota Marxists
Seattle Socialists
Texas Trotskys
There will be no World Series because winning and achieving are filthy capitalist concepts. Instead, at the end of the season all teams will be declared co-champions because socialism is a “participation trophy” ideology that rewards mediocrity while punishing talent and ambition.
