Should MLB umpires really be wearing advertisements?

It took me a while to figure out why Major League Baseball umpires were wearing a badge this season with the letters FTX on it. At first, I figured it was somebody’s initials, maybe somebody who had passed away. But how many people have a last name that starts with X? Then I decided it was a union thing. However, with the way the past few contract negotiations have gone between MLB and the umpires, there was no way they would let umps wear union propaganda on the field. Then I figured it was some sort of cause, like maybe fighting cancer or saving pandas.

So I Googled it … and it was a crypto company. Maybe the rest of the world knew that six months before I did, but now I do. And the past tense turns out to be appropriate, as things turned out.  But I did Google it, which means the advertisement achieved its goal. How many people Googled it and decided to invest in it, we’ll never know … but some probably did.

Now, this is not the forum to ponder whether a currency based on nothing tangible can suddenly be worth $32 billion. And we probably shouldn’t even question whether such a speculative venture is the right image for impartial arbiters who are upholding the sanctity of the game. All that would just be me being an old guy who doesn’t understand crypto and thinks if I don’t understand it, it must be shady (sometimes old guys are right, it turns out).

To clarify, this deal was negotiated by Major League Baseball, not the umpires’ union or individual ump. But maybe we should be asking why the umpires are shilling for anyone. Of course, we are used to every aspect of sports being for sale, with every inch of stadiums and every moment of a broadcast being viewed as potential revenue. It might seem sanctimonious to begrudge umpires their shot at this cash pile when everyone else is doing it. There is nothing inherently corrupt about having a logo on your chest, even if it is the logo of what turned out to be a pyramid scheme.

But still, if we separate out the problems with FTX, there is still the question of whether it’s a good look for MLB umpires to be advertising at all.

So much of why we watch sports is based on the belief that things are above board, that games are being decided on the merits, with no agendas lurking in the background. Having a corporate logo on an umpire’s chest makes him look like a mercenary, and mercenaries are known for not letting details like ethics and loyalty get in the way of a paycheck.

That might not be a big deal, until some umpire starts “interpreting” the strike zone instead of just calling balls and strikes. When (not if) that takes place, the last thing anyone wants is any suggestion that it’s caused by something other than just a bad ump, or a good ump having a bad day. When MLB creates the impression that umps are part of the revenue stream, just like everything else, it doesn’t help.