MLB: 3 more ways baseball can go greener on Earth Day

Today, MLB listed more than 100 ways baseball has gone green. In honor of Earth Day, we have three more ways for the sport to go even greener

For those who don’t know, today is the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, a day in which the world comes together to demonstrate support for environmental protection. As such, MLB has listed over 100 ways the sport of baseball has gone green over the years on its home site.

Among those examples, you have initiatives like:

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Installing LED field lighting (19 teams practice this)
Eliminating plastic straws (7 teams practice this)
Utilizing solar power at home parks (10 teams practice this)
Installing synthetic grass (like the Arizona Diamondbacks have)
Using compostable packaging (like the Minnesota Twins have)

Now, these are just five examples of how MLB has attempted to make a great impact on the globe by going greener. However, there are three more effective methods that can dramatically decrease the carbon impact baseball has on the globe.

Limiting Travel

With 30 teams scattered across the United States, there are times when teams like the Miami Marlins have to face off against the Seattle Mariners, which holds a distance of approximately 3300 miles between them. According to BlueSkyModel, planes produce a little over 53 pounds of carbon dioxide per mile.

While that is the most drastic example, let’s take a look at how many pounds of carbon dioxide a single team can potentially produce in a single month.

Let’s say the 2020 MLB season resumes in June and the New York Yankees pick up where they should be on the schedule. Then, for the month of June, the Yankees would travel…

From Seattle to New York on 6/3 (approx. 2800 miles)
From New York to Boston on 6/11 (approx. 200 miles)
From Boston to Pittsburgh on 6/14 (approx. 600 miles)
From Pittsburgh to Minnesota on 6/17 (approx. 1000 miles)
From Minnesota back to New York on 6/21 (approx. 1400 miles)
From New York to Baltimore on 6/28 (approx. 200 miles)

All told, we’re talking 8000 miles of travel in a single month or approximately 424,000 pounds of carbon dioxide. That’s equivalent to approximately 33 homes’ electricity use for one year according to the EPA.

MLB could design a smarter schedule that would limit the amount of travel a team makes each year.

With the novel coronavirus outbreak, baseball has shown that they are willing to make some changes. What better time than now to begin implementing a schedule that would restrain travel a bit?

Shorten the Season

For baseball fans, this may seem like a bad idea, but for the health of the game and, for that matter, the world, a shortened season might not be such a terrible plan.

For one, it would limit the amount of time MLB interferes with the NFL, which tends to monopolize sports’ attention beginning around September. Also, it would fall in line with my first recommendation of limiting travel by essentially axing a couple of series’ off the back end of schedules.

For example, if baseball were to revert back to a 154 game schedule, a team would play approximately two 4-game series’ less than they normally would. That’s potentially two travel days fewer for all 30 MLB teams, which could prevent hundreds of thousands of pounds of carbon dioxide from seeping into the air.

More Day Games

Finally, MLB can shift its schedule to allow for more day games, especially on weekends and holidays, and they can implement an earlier schedule during the postseason.

One of the biggest mysteries of baseball is that its premier weekly game, typically aired on ESPN’s ‘Sunday Night Baseball’, doesn’t begin until after 8 PM on Sundays, a school night. The fans the sport is trying to entice the most are getting ready for bed by that time and don’t get to see their favorite player’s in action.

What harm would it do the sport to play the game at 1 PM or 4 PM. The NFL does it every single Sunday, why can’t MLB?

By enforcing a rule in which teams must play day games on the weekends, MLB would essentially make it so that the field lighting does not have to be utilized for potentially 30 games each week for the duration of the MLB season.

That’s a potential savings of hundreds of tons of carbon dioxide emissions.

The point is, baseball should be applauded for their efforts to make the game green on Earth Day. There’s always a way to go greener, however, and it doesn’t necessarily have to negatively impact the sport.

What are some ways you think MLB can go greener? Leave us a comment below!