The Rise and Fall of Fandom, Part II: Mookie Betts
This is the second of two blog posts inspired by requests from readers. If you missed Part I, you can read it here. Part I was inspired by a request from my friend, Ben, from grad school. Part II, which is the piece you’re reading now, was inspired by a request from my friend Dennis, who I met in undergrad. Both are consistent readers of the blog, for which I thank you both! I would also like to apologize in advance for some of my language in this blog. There are a few expletives included.
Growing up, baseball was (and remains) my favorite sport and the Boston Red Sox were my favorite team. I lived and died with every game, and their abysmal 2012 season was one of the worst summers that I can remember. But there were plenty of good times too! My first season as a real, rabid fan was 2007. The Sox won the World Series that year, and they managed to rebound from the 2012 season to win again in 2013 (that team deserves its own blog post). They capped off the decade with ANOTHER World Series win in 2018, which, in retrospect, was a bittersweet penultimate chapter to my relationship with the team.
Mookie Betts holding the 2018 World Series trophy during the Championship Parade in Boston. Photo Credit to Stan Grossfeld.
The success of the Red Sox was an important part of my early fandom, but more than anything, the relationship that I have with the game is because of my dad. My dad is my best friend, my hero, and the reason that I am the way I am when it comes to baseball. So if I’ve ever annoyed you with my inability to shut up about baseball, blame my dad.
I was lucky enough to be born to a dad who loved sports and loved playing and watching sports with his kids. Some of my earliest baseball memories involve going to minor league games with my dad. We had two teams within about 45 minutes of my childhood home. One that played in Norwich (the Navigators, then the Defenders, and finally the Tigers) and one that played in Pawtucket (the Paw Sox). These games were much cheaper than the games MLB teams hosted and were a much easier commute than trekking up to Boston or down to New York. We would regularly attend somewhere around 5-10 games per year in the minors, but only ever one or two for MLB teams.
Me and my dad at the 2013 Single A All-Star Game in Norwich, Connecticut. Photo cred to Todd Kalif.
MLB tickets were then, and are now, exceedingly expensive. For the two of us to attend a game, usually at Fenway Park where the Red Sox play, it would run about $200-$300 for tickets and food at the game, plus another $40 for parking, plus four hours in the car round trip. Minor league games, all said and done, would be about $40. The $200+ at Fenway would get good, but not great seats. The $40 at minor league games would get you seats that would cost upwards of $1,000 at an MLB stadium. All of that is to say that the one or two games per year that my dad and I went to were extremely special.
One of the cooler things about the minor league games is that sometimes you would have the chance to see players before they made it to the big leagues. As the team in Norwich changed hands and levels, players there were less and less likely to be Major Leaguers. However, in Pawtucket, that team remained a high-level affiliate of the Boston Red Sox until 2020, when Rob Manfred decided to kill off 25% of all minor league affiliates. (For those who are unfamiliar, minor league teams serve as feeder teams for MLB clubs. Each MLB team had several affiliated clubs that would graduate players, step by step and level by level, to the parent club. Most players who play professional baseball will spend all or most of their career in the minor leagues, only a select few make it to MLB).
On one night in 2014, my dad took me to a Paw Sox game. I made it a mission of mine to get a ball signed by the Red Sox highest ranked prospect at the time, Mookie Betts. (Players in the minor leagues often sign autographs for fans--the practice is observed far less in MLB due to contracts with sports memorabilia companies). As he was running out to start his warm ups, I asked if he would sign a ball for me, he replied that he would when he was done warming up. As the time passed, I got distracted (with what, I have no idea), and wasn’t paying attention to when the warm ups had concluded.
“Hey kid! Do you still want me to sign?”
That’s what Mookie Betts yelled to me on his way back into the dugout. From that moment on, he was going to be my guy. No player had ever done that for me. Sure, a lot of them would sign if you asked, but often begrudgingly. Mookie made sure that he got back to me, even though he really had no obligation to do so. While Dustin Pedroia was my favorite player in the Majors, Mookie was going to be my #2 as soon as he made his debut.
Later that summer, Mookie made his debut with the Red Sox. On July 2, 2014, I was playing a travel baseball game that had been delayed because of lightning. While we waited out the delay, I was following the Red Sox game that was happening at Fenway Park concurrently. In just his 4th career game, Mookie started in center field for the Sox. In the bottom of the fifth inning, he absolutely launched his first career home run over the Green Monster in left. I was so excited that I jumped out of the dugout to tell my dad--who made it to nearly every single baseball game that I have ever played in--and we celebrated together before I had to get back to my own game.
Over the next three years, Dustin Pedroia and Mookie Betts shared the field for the Red Sox, but from 2015 on, Mookie was the better player. With Pedroia’s unceremonious end coming in 2017, all of my fandom was channeled into Mookie Betts. He was exciting, young, a great hitter, an exemplary fielder (even though he was brought into the organization to play second base but moved to the outfield in deference to Pedroia), and also short. He’s the same height as me, but he can dunk and also is better at bowling than I am at breathing:
From the jump, Mookie was obviously a different breed of baseball player. His 2014 season saw him play just 52 games, about a third of a season, and still put up 2.3 WAR. That’s a 6+ WAR pace! But, if you remember my article about Pedroia, you’ll know that the second year of a player’s career is often marked by regression. Well, in Betts’ second year, he put up 6.1 WAR. In fact, he has put up over 6 WAR in EVERY SINGLE FULL SEASON HE HAS PLAYED. That means that he’s been a top 10 player every year that he’s been healthy. Even in 2020, with a COVID-shortened 60 game schedule, Betts still managed an MLB leading 3.6 WAR in 55 games. A full season at that pace would have yielded 9.7 WAR, an MVP caliber level of production.
Mookie was a standout in 2016, producing 9.5 WAR and leading all of baseball in at bats and total bases. He ultimately finished second in MVP voting to Mike Trout, who put together one of the best seasons of all time. Not to be outdone, Mookie’s 2018 campaign saw him deliver a 10.7 WAR season. He led all of baseball in WAR, runs, batting average, slugging percentage, and took home his own MVP award. Mookie, like Pedroia, produced through every facet of his game. He was a beast on offense and a menace in the field. While not from his 2018 season, this catch from 2015 shows you the kind of fielder that he is. (It is also worth noting that he started playing outfield in 2014, before that he was a second baseman).
My favorite Mookie highlight from his tenure with the Red Sox is this grand slam that he hit as part of his 2018 MVP season. I’ll let Jomboy walk you through this one, though I do have to remark that on the TV broadcast, as Betts rounds second, the Sox’s broadcaster jubilantly yells “I’m telling ya! It’s time to party!” in a sing-songy, celebratory way. But that’s how it felt to watch Mookie do his thing on the 2018 Sox. I know this is a longer video, but I promise, you should watch it all to understand the kind of player that Betts was for the Sox that year. It was a team of destiny led by the best Red Sox player since Ted Williams led the team in the 1940s. It looked as if a new generation of Red Sox dominance was upon us, and Mookie was going to helm the franchise as it chased a dynastic run of World Series appearances.
Going into the 2019 season, there was a lot to look forward to for Boston fans. Betts, then just 26 years old, was leading a team of B-named outfielders (joined by Andrew Benintendi and Jackie Bradley Jr.) and everything looked rosy. Betts was still under the six years of team control that every player is burdened with at the outset of their career, but had entered his second year of salary arbitration, where he was awarded $20 million for his production on the field. With one year of team control remaining, Boston fans hoped that the multi-billionaire owner of the Red Sox, John Henry, would do what he should and lock up the franchise player to a long, expensive extension. According to the Fangraps WAR-Dollar calculator, which estimates what a player’s production is worth to a team on the open market, Bett’s had provided $230.4 million worth of production to the Sox from 2014 to 2018. In exchange, the Red Sox paid him $12.5 million. The top image below shows his worth to the Sox, while the one below shows his actual salaries.
If you’re a human with a job, or know someone with a job, or have ever had a job, that should make your stomach turn. Mookie Betts was compensated to the tune of 5.4% of what he produced for the Red Sox. $218 million was the difference between the two numbers. All of that went, essentially, right into the pockets of John Henry. And that does not account for the revenue made through merchandise, tickets, and food that fans purchased because they wanted his jersey or wanted to see him play. If the Red Sox paid Mookie Betts for an average of his production over those 5 seasons, he would have made just north of $46 million per year. So, when the time came to offer Betts an extension, a 10 year, $350 million (ish) deal would STILL BE A BARGAIN FOR WHAT THEY WERE GETTING. According to who? Not me. LITERALLY THE OPEN MARKET, THE VERY THING THAT ALREADY UNDERVALUES PLAYERS.
Anyway, Betts was never offered the opportunity to stay. Rumors persisted that the Sox offered him 10 years and $300 million, which is a steep discount for what he should have been offered, but Betts has denied that a $300 million offer was ever on the table. And it wasn’t as if Betts didn’t want to be a Red Sox leader forever, he’s quoted saying:
“We were looking for houses in Boston. We thought it was going to work out. I thought both sides were playing the slow game and it would eventually work out. We were negotiating, that’s what I thought.” About the franchise, Betts remarked “That was my team.”
“That WAS (emphasis added) my team.” Was. Why was it his team? Why isn’t it his team still? Well, my friends, it’s because Mookie Betts didn’t want to play in Boston. Oh, shit, I’m sorry. That’s just the rumor that Red Sox ownership started to make fans mad at their star player instead of at the owner that wouldn’t pay him. He isn’t still on the team because John Henry traded him to the Los Angeles Dodgers for essentially nothing. Why? Because they did not want to pay him what he was worth. He wanted to stay in Boston. He wanted to be a franchise icon. The fans wanted him to stay. The only people that didn’t want him to stay were the people that had to pay him.
“Why give Mookie money to make our fans happy when we could just take the money ourselves and be happy?” - Red Sox Ownership (probably)
As a young fan, I was absolutely dumbfounded. The best player that I had ever seen put on my team’s uniform was moving across the country to play for the Dodgers. And what did the Dodgers do when they got Mookie? They signed him to a 12 year, $365 million extension. Mookie Betts will be a Dodger until he retires. Since joining the Dodgers, Betts has maintained his elite level of play, but has somehow become more impressive.
Remember how I said Mookie Betts played excellent outfield for the Red Sox? Well he did it for the Dodgers too. Until they needed him to play second base and/or shortstop, two positions that he had not played in nearly a decade. What did he do? He was awesome at both spots and in the outfield. And at the plate. Since arriving in LA, he’s made an All Star Game every year there has been one, finished second, fifth, second again, and thirteenth in MVP voting, won four Silver Slugger Awards, and two Gold Glove Awards. He’s also added another two World Series victories, rings that every Boston fan expected would be won with our team.
Watching Betts succeed with another team wasn’t what killed my fandom. That’s part of being a sports fan. Your favorite players change teams, retire, or suck so bad that you wish they had done either of the first two things. That’s life. What killed my fandom was that, after trading Betts, John Henry raised ticket prices significantly. So significantly that games were now essentially out of reach for my family. Not only did he make the product shittier, he made it more expensive. Not because the Red Sox were in financial trouble, or because they weren’t turning a profit--they’re one of the most financially successful franchises in all of sports. He did it because he wanted more money. Because a number on the bottom of some fucking excel spreadsheet could get just that much bigger if he shipped out a generational talent. That’s what killed my fandom. Greed.
I do, however, take solace in the reality that the Los Angeles Dodgers, home to Mookie Betts and Shohei Ohtani (and every other good player not named Aaron Judge or Juan Soto), make gobs of money. According to Travis Sawchik--another favorite of mine--the Dodgers’ 2024 revenue was second in the league at $637 million, and they spent 67% of that money on payroll for their players. They also put together one of the most dominant franchises ever and won the World Series. (The only team that spent a higher percentage of their revenue on payroll was the Mets, who spent a whopping 102% of team revenue on payroll--shoutout to Steve Cohen, criminal, insider trader, owner of the Mets). The Red Sox came in third, with $557 million in revenue, but they spent just 40% on salaries. The Dodgers will continue to rake in cash because they cannot stop winning. They’re the best team in baseball now and will be for the foreseeable future and it’s fucking awesome. They pay their players fairly, they invest in their minor leagues, and they do just about everything right. Their owners spend money because a winning team makes money. Being a miserly piece of shit might save you some money in the long run, but it certainly isn’t worth the damage that you do to your franchise and its fanbase.
That is the miserable difference that ruined my ability to root for any team. Mookie Betts’ trade to the Dodgers showed me that the guy that owns your favorite team doesn’t want the same thing that you do. They root for their own finances, all else be damned.
To answer the question of “Why don’t you have a favorite team?” more succinctly:
I do not have a favorite team because I believe that every team, at one point or another, will break the unspoken, yet sacred, contract between fans and the team (by this I mean the team as an entity comprising ownership, management, and decisionmakers, not the players). This contract stipulates that I will spend time, money, energy, and attention on the team. In exchange, I can expect to receive a team that will try their best to win. John Henry did not try his best to win when he traded Betts in 2019. Hal Steinbrenner did not try his best to win when he let Soto walk this year. The only team that you can credibly accuse of doing everything in their power to win is the Los Angeles Dodgers. For now, Dodgers fans, I hope you bask in the sunshine of a mutually fulfilling relationship. You haven’t always had one with that team, and it will ebb and flow with the wants of the Baseball Gods.
So why am I a fan of the sport at all? Because one group of people do everything they can to win every single game: the players. The players live and die with their own successes and failures, they do everything possible to help the team that cares little for them. It is their will, athleticism, tenacity, and their personalities that make the games what they are. If you kept every single baseball owner in place but replaced all of the players with regular people, the game would be unwatchable. However, if you kept all of the players but replaced all of the owners with regular people… Well then we might even see the Chicago White Sox put up a fight.
