Chop block
There are two reasons Rob Manfred said stupid things in response to questions around the Tomahawk Chop. Neither one is good.
"We don’t market our game, umm, on a nationwide basis. You know, ours is an everyday game. We gotta sell tickets every single day to the fans in that market, and there are all sorts of differences among the clubs, among the regions, as to how the game is marketed.”
This is the meat of the quote for which people are rightly dragging commissioner Rob Manfred; precisely the kind of moronic marketingbabble that belies any pretense of competence. Answering questions from the media in advance of the opening game of this World Series, Manfred was asked about the controversy surrounding Braves’ fans continued use of the Tomahawk Chop — as well as the Braves’ assent-by-commission — and unloaded more of his customary verbal diarrhea when he doesn’t have prepared remarks or a teleprompter to steel his resolve.
But, in reality, he’s not talking about the Braves, their fans, a purloined tradition astroturfed from Tallahassee or the one sliver of a of Native American demographic OK with what happens with a subtle-but-not-necessarily clever beat over the Truist Park PA system.
You see, he can’t control what fans do, but in his mind he also cannot tell a club what to or not to do. He’s not arguing the merits or morality of the Tomahawk Chop: he’s protecting Major League Baseball’s antitrust exemption. And after reading and re-reading the quotes he offered, that’s the only explanation that gives these quotes any gravity at all.
When he’s talking about teams individually marketing to their own territories, he’s technically correct: it’s up to clubs to promote their own products on the field and how they choose to do so is up to them. Is this a reasonable (or, crap, even a good) response to the question at hand? Of course not. But he also cannot go on the record and express criticism toward one of his ballclubs — owned by a firm worth over $16 billion and was once a suitor for the suite of regional sports networks that were part of Fox Sports until 2019 — or openly antagonize fans (at least, overtly) by Streisand Effect-ing the Chop.
So Rob Manfred trips over his own tongue. Which is what he does.
Before the pandemic set in in earnest and became a subtext to everything, we were worried about the way in which MLB ahem handled the Astros sign-stealing scandal. He sat down with ESPN elder statesman Karl Ravech to discuss the state of Major League Baseball and the trash can scandal. Based on his ‘hunk of metal’ comments the October prior about the trophy that is named after his office, we already knew this wasn’t going to go well.
It didn’t. Pandemic life settled in about a month later, George Floyd’s murder two months past that, giving us new ways to criticize Manfred’s leadership from behind. And you wonder why he wants to be “forward-looking”. He’d rather stare down labor nuclear winter next month than look back at the wreckage in his wake, or the fact that the last four World Series participant teams have been scrutinized for a range of infractions that run afoul of everything from baseball’s rulebook to federal law.
There can be no surprise, then, that Manfred would rather couch things within the realm he is ostensibly most familiar. Never mind that he bungled that, he’s allowed by Supreme Court ruling to bungle that and everything else without legal repercussions. He’s permitted to be a buffoon by MLB’s 30 member clubs, who perhaps view him as a useful idiot devoid of actual power while they run roughshod. They need him at the bargaining table and want him nowhere else, unless they’re opening a Chipotle in an outparcel at Angel Stadium or something (can’t rule it out!)
Hey, if you can’t make the on-field product and production compelling, you can always Make it Major.
Circling back to put a finer point on the matter: Rob Manfred is not responsible for the Tomahawk Chop, but he is responsible for the game and — in theory — for ownership under his purview. The fact that he would be so deferential to a Braves talking point — like the doctors Lucky Strike hired to endorse smoking, popularlized in Mad Men season one — indicates that MLB is at the Do Long bridge. There is no commanding officer.
Contrast the Atlanta fiasco with Cleveland, where Manfred ‘strongly encouraged’ ownership to drop Chief Wahoo, a clearly anachronistic and inflammatory caricature. What is the Tomahawk Chop if not both? Is Manfred in no position to make even a light suggestion to John Malone’s Braves? Perhaps we don’t want that question to be answered. But all evidence points to no. Not when there’s billions of dollars on the line this winter.
Baseball may be an everyday game, but collective bargaining is not. And that’s the only reason Rob Manfred is here.