Can baseball help Bernie Sanders hit a 2020 home run?

BURLINGTON, Iowa (AP) — Take Bernie out to the ball game?

Bernie Sanders, the Vermont senator and Democratic presidential candidate, is aggressively opposing a Major League Baseball plan to cut 42 minor league teams across the country after 2020. Among the targeted are the Vermont Lake Monsters, the Single-A affiliate of the Oakland Athletics in his hometown, Burlington.

Defending low-profile ball clubs in far-flung places more fervently than anyone in the crowded Democratic presidential field allows Sanders to potentially win over a largely untapped 2020 constituency: baseball fans.

Sanders planned to take batting practice indoors with minor league players Sunday in Burlington, Iowa. In August, he played softball with reporters on the state’s corn field-ringed “Field of Dreams,” the set of the Hollywood hit of the same name. And he has tapped a former Yale second baseman, Faiz Shakir, to run his campaign.

Taking the diamond demonstrates physical stamina for a 78-year-old who recently had a heart attack, while also letting Sanders press a larger political point about rich owners putting profits ahead of the national pastime. But it also shows off a softer side of someone most known to supporters and detractors alike for being a democratic socialist and backing progressive policy proposals such as “Medicare for All.”

“The guys who own the teams are billionaires,'' Sanders said in an interview, adding that baseball ``is not an institution that is hurting financially. And you can see that by, just in the last few weeks, seeing major league teams signing star baseball players for as much (as) $324 million.”

That refers to the New York Yankees recently signing free-agent pitcher Gerrit Cole to a reported 9-year, $324 million contract.

MLB is negotiating a...

source https://www.chron.com/sports/article/Can-baseball-help-Bernie-Sanders-hit-a-2020-home-14907808.php