Civil disobedience (baseball edition)

I have new respect for Jorge Polanco.

The infielder/DH of this year's Seattle Mariners has had a Jeckyll-and-Hyde kind of season, with a scalding-hot .395/.434/.816 line in the first five weeks or so, then .173/.236/.240 over the next two months, then .333/.375/.733 in the last week. He's been a questionable presence in the lineup, to say the least.

But in today's game against the Pittsburgh Pirates, Jorge showed me something.

Not with the bat, though he did notch his 1,000th career hit today (congrats). But with his sleeve.

One of Commissioner of Baseball Rob Manfred's goals in life, apparently, is to put advertising on as much space as he can within the game of baseball. It's truly disgusting how much ad space has proliferated since he assumed the role of Commissioner from the previous guy to hold the title of Worst Commissioner Ever. Ads on the outfield walls are as old as outfield walls, ads on stadium deck facings are somehow not terribly obtrusive. But since Manfred they're everywhere, including on the field itself and the ballplayers' uniforms.

The Mariners were slow to adopt the sleeve ads—this is the first year we've been subject to them—but there they are, bright orange to make them difficult to ignore, on the sleeve facing the center-field camera when one is up to bat (right sleeve for left-hand batters, left sleeve for righty batters).

Today Jorge rolled up his sleeve, obscuring the ad from view.

And why not? I don't know for sure that Polanco was defying the practice for philosophical or political reasons, or indeed making a statement of any kind, but I assume he was. He likely doesn't have anything against the sponsor company, which I will not name because, among other reasons, they aren't paying me anything.

Maybe Polanco figured they weren't paying him anything either, so why show the logo? Except they are paying him something indirectly, sort of, as his employer pays him out of revenue they collect from whatever sources, including sleeve ads. Which is perhaps why he rolled the sleeve down later in the game. Someone probably told him he was going to get in trouble with the team or the Commissioner or something.

What the Mariners get from the sponsor company for this defacement isn't widely known, but it's likely similar to the fee [other sponsor] paid for the naming rights to the ballpark, which is less than the typical salary of a middle reliever. (Most are undisclosed, but the top payment for a team is evidently the $25 million paid annually to the Yankees by their sleeve sponsor. The Cincinnati Reds and Miami Marlins each get $5 million a year for theirs. The average is reportedly around $8 million.) It's peanuts in the grand scheme of things for a Major League club's revenue, making the whole endeavor seem even pettier. Not even counting ad sponsorships, merchandise sales, or any other revenue, the Mariners—a middle-tier club in this regard—reportedly took in $70 million last year in ticket sales + TV and broadcast fees – player payroll. (What do you want to bet Manfred and the team owners start crying poor despite this when it's time to negotiate with the players' union again next year.)

I don't know what Polanco's thinking was either way, on rolling up the sleeve or rolling it down again later, but I was both amused and supportive when I saw the blocking of the ad.

Good on you, Jorge Polanco. Stick it to the Man(fred).