The Wiley Ballard Game
by Adam Hunley (@reality_signal)
“So they want me to get your number,” Atlanta Braves sideline reporter Wiley Ballard says to a Blue Jays fan during a series opener in Toronto. She takes his phone, smiling. The guys in the broadcast booth crack jokes. The camera cuts back a moment later and we see the two chatting. Ballard turns to the camera and gives a little wink. Over the 162-game season, broadcast teams reach for any possible filler material for these reports – ballpark food, injury updates – so the bit was novel, funny, some would say cute. But ultimately it was as memorable as any other sideline segment, in other words, forgettable. Then the clip hit social media.
“Can we all agree how nasty and inappropriate this is?” asked Dani Sureck, a reporter for the Arizona Cardinals. Then, Erica Block, a sports journalism major with Jomboy Media bylines, alleged Ballard was a nepo-hire because his father treated the Braves’ manager’s wife for cancer in the 90s. Not to be outdone by the ladies, Evan Grant, a Texas Rangers beat reporter, posted a talking point echoed by many: “If a female reporter did this, she’d be called horrible names and probably run out of town.” Rachel Hopayer, an anchor for CBS Detroit, agreed: “misogyny is alive and well in sports television. A woman could never and would never without losing her job over this.”
To which normal people replied: “huh?” We’re used to the idea of a country divided, of two teams, in parallel realities with inverse moral frameworks. This is exaggerated by the media and the internet, and, offline, many people would rather accentuate areas of agreement. But we know there’s some truth to it. Baseball can no longer be our national pastime because we live in two nations. One likes baseball for its own sake, but for the other, the sport has become yet another medium for enforcing progressive, i.e., feminine, modes of control and oversight: consensus decision-making, safetyism, credentialism, social pressure, “harm reduction” – to ensure displays of masculinity are confined to big swings and strong throws, but go no further.
Baseball is particularly well suited for this new national pastime. Why? Feminization is the end and the means, the meta-strategy. All progressive goals fall neatly into place as this process advances. But baseball is only played by males. Players do and say things you couldn’t get away with in an office. No female will ever play the game at the highest level, or even the ones below that. Something so male- dominated seems like an impossible thing to feminize, which is exactly why they need to do it. But baseball’s also slower than other sports, relaxing – there’s something inherently inclusive about it. Also, the players wear tight pants. Women have always been in the stands. Like a girlfriend making herself at home in a guy’s apartment, it’s only a matter of time before changes are suggested and the struggle for control begins. Not exactly a coordinated conspiracy where fem-dom goals are explicitly stated, but a shift in power that happens naturally, whether we like it or not, for our own good.
But maybe that’s too speculative. Look at the real-world baseball environment: There are corporate sponsors to pressure. Front offices that are concerned with how public opinion might affect the bottom line. (Corporate and female-centered cultures both heavily emphasize risk aversion.) Players from “developing nations.” Unionized vendors. A history that has often intersected with the country’s political landscape. You can project onto baseball any issue you’d like. Take your pick. It’s a playground for progressives. You might like to eat hotdogs and explain the infield fly rule to your kid. Baseball for some creates bonds, memories. How can you not be romantic about baseball, right? But for others it’s less about romance and more about intimacy coordination. A business in material reality means praxis can happen. Fun is happening without mediation! Change must be effected! So they make the commissioner move the All Star Game. They threaten teams that don’t do pride night. Every aspect of the sport, down to each individual press release, must align with the progressive vision. When it doesn’t, punishment will be swiftly administered.
Women in baseball. Well, they can’t actually be on the field, so where should we put them? Everywhere else. But mostly, in the office. Yes, the DEI offices. Behind the keyboards of teams’ social media accounts. Behind the microphones as commentators. Makes sense, seems fine. Except for one thing that might give all of that an outsized impact on the game: they’re the most progressive people on the planet. This fact is widely reported in right-wing media trying to figure out what’s going on, left-wing media gloating about it, and “unbiased” mainstream media also gloating about it. But just look around you. If most of the college-educated millennial and Gen Z women (exactly the demographics filling these sports jobs) in your life aren’t ultra-progressives, I’ll eat my All-American Girls Professional Baseball League bobblehead. We don’t need NBC News to confirm that your average young degreed female would bend space and time to put Cori Bush on the supreme court. For them, the workplace is an extension of the conventions of their university life. The job, regardless of the title, is to construct a longhouse that covers the earth.
In 2000, Major League Baseball became a trailblazer in using the soft sciences as a bureaucratic enforcement mechanism of the feminine therapeutic state. We’re used to this now. Commercials tell us women don’t like men who “don’t do therapy.” The MSM reports what the experts say about the troubling psychological profiles of those who, say, didn’t like wearing a mask or getting a shot. Professional organizations now categorize wrong-thinkers as diagnosable. But at the turn of the millennium, progressives were just getting comfortable with this tactic. Many know the story of John Rocker, who famously gave us a very funny quote about riding the New York City subway. An apology, of course, wasn’t enough. A suspension longer than that of some players busted for PEDs wasn’t enough. Rocker’s very sanity was called into question: as part of his punishment, he was ordered to undergo a psychiatric evaluation. Results were never released, but the message is clear: You’d have to be crazy to disagree with consensus progressive opinion. To have a thought they don’t like is tantamount to being medically insane. And what woman wants to sleep with a slobbering nutcase? You better just put on your Kamala shirt and keep your head down.
In today’s game, we see the version of thera-bureaucratic control from Rocker’s time transitioned into fully blossomed gynocracy. Why wait for an insensitive remark to defensively administer re-education? All MLB players now attend diversity classes in spring training. But when Red Sox outfielder and sensitive-young-man Jarren Duran called a heckler a faggot last August, the league’s takeaway was, of course, that preemptive measures aren’t enough. Duran was suspended for two games, but that didn’t quite drive the message home. He was required to take additional DEI training, and his pay for the two suspended games was donated to PFLAG, an organization that “creates a caring, just, and affirming world for LGBTQ+ people and those who love them.” Baseball! But don’t worry about Duran. He has rehabilitated his image with the help of Netflix, sitting in front of a camera and regurgitating the correct, coached phrases of contrition and activism. So with the inclusion Stasi standing over him, unlike Rocker, Duran accepts, yes, his sin against the divine feminine is a medical issue, an illness. A problem of the organ in his skull that can be fixed with the right treatment, the correct dosage. He’s currently setting up a foundation, which is common among MLB players as a tax haven and way to provide family members with make-work. As a bonus they’re great PR. Duran’s foundation will focus on mental health.
Baseball players seem to be a big problem for baseball. They keep saying the wrong things. If most of them aren’t going to espouse progressive values voluntarily, what is the cabal of women running the league to do? Well, how about just slapping patches on them? They can’t play shirtless. Checkmate, players. It’s a solid plan that’s seen plenty of success in recent years but in the case of the 2022 Rays, it backfired – kind of. The guys in the bullpen peeled off the rainbow sticker-patch. The New York Times called for suspensions, ESPN called them bigots, and citizen-activists flooded the players’ social media accounts. There was no official punishment, but that doesn’t mean an L for MLB DEI. It’s just fuel. Again, “there’s more work to do,” as proclaimed by the New York Times. Any setback for the movement is an excuse to redouble efforts. An inclusivity officer scorned? When you strike their program down, it comes back stronger.
Then there’s Trevor Bauer. Look, this dude’s a freak. Thanks to released texts and voicemails we know he gets up to some stuff my wife would divorce me for trying, but that’s not a crime when it’s consensual, and it has been proven to be consensual. But he still isn’t allowed to pitch. Could this be about something more than his false allegations? Yes. Bauer has some conservative views that he made the mistake of sharing online, including criticism of Barack Obama (gasp). He was a target before he ever consensually bruised anyone in bed. That was just the excuse – a good one admittedly – to get rid of him forever, which they did. If you’re a non-progressive in today’s game, you have to keep quiet. They know you’re there but they won’t tolerate hearing from you. Christians like Clayton Kershaw escape progressive wrath by being squeaky clean in every other area. Latin players can display and discuss their religious convictions because they’re latin (progressives’ hands are tied there for now).
Try to enjoy the game of baseball as much as you can. On any given day, so long as it’s not pride month, you should be able to turn on your TV or go to the ballpark without too many trans flags in your face. You probably won’t have to explain to your kids why there are scary nuns with beards on the jumbotron. But it’s not the same game you grew up with. It’s a softer, coddled version, mediated by state apparatchiks. It’s baseball as struggle session, where the men who make it possible aren’t celebrated so much as managed. I like that women like baseball. I like that they work in baseball. But handing the sport over to total feminine-progressive control is changing it in ways that are making it harder to watch. You can try your best to ride the tiger of modernity as a good reactionary, but like Wiley Ballard, you might have to settle for riding the hotdog. That’s what he did the very next game after his on-air meet-cute/sexual assault. The Braves’ broadcast team handled the situation right: they ignored it. There was no mention of the fallout, just Ballard and another bro on either end of a hotdog see-saw. Shutting it all out and having a great time. You love to see it, dudes rockin’.
That rainbow flag outfield photo is fake right? Please tell me that is fake
I'm just starting to get into baseball again just because I'd thought I'd be able to get away from this shit. I'm well aware how ridiculous the NBA is but baseball too?!