Announcements and a Thank You <3

We have a book club date!

Jackie. (Photo by Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images)

Hi friends-

First, some housekeeping before we dive in:

• I’m so excited to announce we finally have a book club Zoom date for Lords of the Realm! If you are new to the Long Game, we pick a book to read every few months and then we get the author to join us to talk about their work. I’m thrilled that John Helyar will meet with us to talk about his book over Zoom on Monday, May 12 from 5:30 PM PT - 6:30 PM PT. Helyar has written one of the best baseball books I’ve ever read, and it is a perfect primer for the labor lockout that’s on the horizon. It’s a long book, but you now have an extra month to read it! Mark your calendars for this special event!

• There will be no baseball zoom this weekend as I have several baseball-related conflicts, but we will be back next Saturday the 19th at noon PT.

• Readers were kind enough to donate three paid subs for those who otherwise can’t afford them right now. I was able to find a home for one of the subs, but I still have two to give away to the first two people who respond to this email. If you would like to donate a paid subscription to a Long Game member who can’t afford one, email me at molly.knight@gmail.com. I love this project! <3

The Long Game is an independent, reader-supported newsletter. I get to say whatever I want without corporate overlords neutering my words. It’s been a sad, tough week. The best way to support me and my work is by taking out a paid subscription now:

I want to thank you all for the overwhelmingly positive response to my column on the careless and cruel state-sanctioned treatment of both Roberto Clemente and Jackie Robinson that I posted on Monday.

I have tried to keep my Substack a politics-free space for reasons that I thought were good but don’t actually work for me anymore.

If you guys follow me on social media you know I’ve never shied away from speaking out against fascism, racism, bullying, homophobia, and misogyny, but I guess I thought I could just keep this space a conflict-free zone to give everyone a break from being at each other’s throats all the time. And while that might be a nice goal, sometimes things happen that must be addressed.

The fact is the President of the United States and his team of white nationalists removed Jackie Robinson’s military service under the guise that Robinson was merely “DEI,” and then bragged about it. Robinson famously broke baseball’s color barrier. It is the most important story in baseball history. Full stop.

The Trump administration would like to gaslight everyone into believing no color barriers exist, which not only takes away Robinson’s accomplishments but whitewashes American history. We cannot talk about the history of baseball or the history of the United States without talking about what Robinson endured. Period.

And that’s not even the worst of it. The part that hurts me the most is the Dodgers went right along with it, shaking Trump’s hand, smiling and cheesing in photos with him, presenting him the same jersey Robinson wore when we all know Trump would have done everything in his power to block Robinson from ever playing in MLB.

Dave Roberts knows that. Stan Kasten knows that. Lon Rosen knows that. Mark Walter knows that.

I don’t think any of these men voted for Trump but it doesn’t matter. They all legitimized his administration’s erasure of Robinson and everything he represents—the week before Jackie Robinson Day!!!— and it’s pretty unforgivable.

When I wrote my story, I actually thought Dodger fans would be split 60/40 on the issue of the team visiting to the White House, with the majority disagreeing, but a healthy chunk of people either supporting the visit because they like Trump, or just buying the Dodgers' BS line that this wasn’t political, but merely a pizza party celebration at the White House as a perk for being World Champions.

I’m guessing the big brains who made the decision that half the fanbase would be mad either way so every Dodger should just go to the White House to avoid looking fractured on this issue was the best PR play.

They were wrong.

The publicity obsessed Dodgers typically receive 400-900 comments on their Instagram posts. They dedicated two posts to their White House visit, and at press time each had garnered 11,200 comments. Of those 22,400 comments, 90% are negative while only 10% seem positive (and those are mostly comments telling people to stop whining because going to the White House is a tradition. No one is in there defending what Trump did to Robinson). I’m including a small taste of how Dodger fans feel here, because these comments look exactly like the emails and messages you guys have sent me:

I don’t have any illusions that this f—k up will impact the Dodgers bottom line, which is all they care about. They lead the league in attendance every year, and Lord knows all the Japanese sponsors who are paying them nine figures this year to put their signs up at Dodger Stadium do not care about American politics.

But if my inbox—and the Dodgers’ Instagram comment section—are any indication, a lot of fans are really upset. Like, primal scream upset. If the IG comments are any indication of what the phone calls and emails to the Dodgers fan services line look like, then employees on the club’s marketing and business side are having an uncomfortable week.

Then again, I’ve seen fans of all 30 teams twist themselves into knots to defend their favorite club signing players who abuse women, so I have no expectation people will hold the line on this, or even what the right way for fans to push back even is.

The fact that the visit wasn’t really optional is what will stick with me most. I will not soon get over the images of Mookie Betts, Chris Taylor, and Kiké Hernandez looking like hostages standing behind Trump, while Blake Treinen was able to skip meeting with Joe Biden in 2021 and no one accused him of being anti-American. No one even cared.

Those of you who emailed me to let me know how despondent you are about the scenes from Monday, I hope you messaged the Dodgers, too. What I learned this week is that more people are upset, outraged, and in despair than I thought. There’s comfort in knowing that we are not alone in feeling devastated about all this, and I’d encourage you to make your voices heard. I’m not going to stop calling this stuff out, and whatever happens to my bottom line, happens.

I don’t think I care anymore. Being able to live with myself is more important than losing a few subscribers who want me to “stick to sports” because they don’t want to face uncomfortable truths.

This is not going to become a politics blog. I’ll still be writing about baseball. But if I can’t use my platform to talk about what they tried to do to Jackie Robinson, and the Dodgers embarrassing response, then what good is having a platform?

In other news of Baseball Men Behaving Badly, it’s been zero days since the Pirates were caught disgracing Roberto Clemente’s legacy, yet again. When we last left them over the weekend, a fan had caught them replacing Clemente’s name and number under the right field foul pole with a third-rate liquor ad.

Would you believe it gets worse?

Twenty-five years ago the Pirates sold 10,000 “Bucco Bricks” to benefit the Roberto Clemente foundation. These bricks offered fans a chance to write short messages or honor loved ones with markings on bricks that would line the walkways into gorgeous PNC Park. Cool deal, right?

Well, fans noticed they bricks were suspiciously missing back in January, and the Pirates said no biggie, that the sidewalks were just being renovated. Everyone assumed the club would just clean or repair the bricks or replace them with new ones and the story died.

That is until yesterday when the bricks were found in a trash dump. "Unbelievable. That's unbelievable," Pirates fan Mark Robinson told KDKA-TV in Pittsburgh. "We bought those bricks. That's my brick. I mean, my daughter's name is literally on the brick. It's mine and they just got rid of it. I'm like a tornado of anger swirling about here today when I heard what they are going to do with these bricks.”

The Pirates—who seem to exist permanently on their back foot with Bob “Good For” Nutting as owner— said the bricks had been eroded by weather and foot traffic over the years, and would be replaced. Someone who works for the team whined that. the criticism was unfair because it was not possible to contact everyone who bought a brick. That may well be true, but one wonders: what stopped the team from announcing that they were replacing the bricks on all their social media channels as well as a plan for when those replacements would be installed, so that no one who honored a dead relative with a brick would feel like they had their throat ripped out yesterday?

Ah yes. That would be a) competence, and b) giving a rat’s behind about their fans. (They’re 0-for-2 there).

I look forward to learning what ways this organization will offend its 30 remaining fans next week. I can tell you if I had bought a brick to honor my dead aunt and then discovered they had thrown it into a literal garbage dump I would be looking for a new team to support.

That’s all for today. Tomorrow we will be back with our regularly scheduled Free Friday round-up of everything that happened in MLB this week, as well as our all day and night live game chats for paid subscribers.

I thank you again for your support. I took a leap this week and you guys were my safety net. Thank you.

You can find me on bluesky at @mollyknight, or on Instagram at molly_knight.