Franke: The Dog Days of Baseball
by Mark Franke
It is August now and for baseball that means the July 31 trading deadline has passed. For major league teams it is the best opportunity to upgrade rosters for those with playoff potential, or to unload high salaries and impending free agents for those with no hope for October baseball.
For minor league teams such as the Fort Wayne TinCaps, it is a bittersweet moment. The TinCaps lost their two middle infielders, the offensive sparkplugs who could ignite late inning rallies. The bitter part was realized the first night, July 31, as the team was unable to generate any offense to overcome a 2-0 deficit.
If there is a sweet side to this bittersweet moment, only time will tell as new players are transferred to Fort Wayne by Padres management. Can they replace a top prospect like Leo De Vries or a fan favorite like Brandon Butterworth? Time will tell, but I am sure the regulars like me will grumble about their loss for the rest of the season.
And herein lies both the strength and the weakness of the current professional baseball structure. I am a reader of baseball history, and the history of minor league baseball is fascinating. There was a time not too long ago when the minor leagues, through the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues, had significant negotiating influence with the major leagues. I use the plural because there used to be two major leagues, the National and the American, with responsibility for much of their own affairs. That independence, what was left of it, was eliminated in 1999 when the Commissioner’s Office took sole authority over all things baseball.
That was just a portend of what was to come. This may seem like a nit being picked but that was when the umpires, not so affectionately called “Blue” by unappreciative fans, were newly attired in black. Baseball conspiracy theorists, like me, were caught asleep. The two league presidents were fired, cross league scheduling wreaked havoc on divisional races and, most heretical of all, the National League adopted the designated hitter.
It didn’t take long for Commissar Rob Manfred to set his imperial sights on gaining complete control of minor league baseball by dissolving the National Association. This happened during Covid — a crisis too good to pass up, as Obama chief of staff Rohm Emanuel was wont to say.
So what, you may ask? One unfortunate change was that the individual leagues no longer controlled their own schedules. If memory serves, 2025 was the first year in the history of the TinCaps when we didn’t have a July 4 game at home, always a sell-out since attendees had front-row seats for the city’s firework display.
This year’s schedule was just plain awful, for the players and the front office personnel and us fans. I understand the reason for the six-game series to minimize travel expenses but the old Midwest League would alternate weeks at home and weeks on the road. This year, in contrast, the TinCaps had four double weeks when the team was at home or on the road. Was this really necessary?
It is obvious that I have a bad attitude about the changes in baseball since the current commissioner was elected by the owners to maximize their profits. I am a classical liberal, a disciple of Adam Smith, so I understand profit maximization. But I learned in one of my MBA classes that profit maximization can only happen if you serve the public. Commissar Manfred, no doubt realistically, understands that his public is the 30 MLB owners who pay his salary and not the millions of fans who pay the bills.
One last rant. I subscribe to the MLB TV network which blacks out all White Sox, Cubs, Reds and Tiger games for Fort Wayne reception. Theoretically they are on local channels but I can’t figure out our current streaming service so I have no idea how to get these games. What makes no sense to me is why when I tried to watch a Yankees-Phillies game I was blacked out. My neighbor was able to get it. Since I am now a card-carrying conspiracy theorist, I suspect that the MLB politburo in Manhattan was behind this.
Maybe it is due to the recent heat wave or to the struggles of my two favorite teams, the TinCaps and the Yankees, but my attitude has been less than exemplary the past few weeks. Perhaps watching Fort Wayne native Andrew Saalfrank pitch a perfect inning in relief for the Arizona Diamondbacks last Saturday will help overcome all this brooding.
Or perhaps I should just take a friend’s perspective: The multi-millionaire players get regular paychecks, taxpayers are still getting fleeced for new stadiums, and where else can you get a $20 beer?
Mark Franke, M.B.A., an adjunct scholar of the Indiana Policy Review and its book reviewer, is formerly an associate vice-chancellor at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne.
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