Ahead of the 2024 Congressional Baseball Game, climate activists in Washington, DC are organizing a disruption. Upstart organizing group Climate Defiance, known for disrupting prominent events and confronting politicians, bureaucrats, and businesspeople, has settled on its next target: the National Pastime.

91 times since 1909, legislators in Congress have assembled themselves into teams and played a ballgame, Republicans vs Democrats. Over the years, the annual tradition became an important symbol of bipartisanship and civility within American politics. According to the Congressional Baseball Game’s website, “The game has grown into one of Washington’s most anticipated annual social events,” where staffers, lobbyists and consultants (in addition to baseball fans) are invited to watch the proceedings on the field.

Those staffers, lobbyists, consultants, and the legislators on the field are exactly who Climate Defiance hopes to reach with its message: “Stop Playing Games”.

An organizer for Climate Defiance, Shivani Nelson, spoke about the group’s goals for the blockade.

“We want to send the message that their priorities are completely backwards, that they're playing silly games with their friends that don't really matter,” said Nelson. “Congress is more worried about maintaining friendships with fossil fuel lobbyists than saving millions of lives that are on the line with the current climate crisis that we're in.”

Of particular note, the 2024 Congressional Baseball Game has taken over $57,000 in sponsorships from oil and gas companies including Chevron, and $105,000 from weapons manufacturers including Raytheon. The US military accounts for an enormous amount of global carbon emissions, with some estimates pegging the Pentagon as the single largest emitting entity globally. These sponsorships demonstrate the friendly relationships between fossil fuel (and military) lobbyists that Climate Defiance is aiming to disrupt.

This year will not be the first time the Congressional Baseball Game has been the target of climate activists. In 2022, a coalition of DC climate groups organized under the campaign “Now or Never” blockaded the game, demanding an executive order declaring a climate emergency and the immediate passage of the Inflation Reduction Act. Just over two weeks after the game, the Inflation Reduction Act was signed into law by President Biden to the delight of climate and environmental groups across the US.

Climate Defiance is hoping to build on the 2022 blockade two years later. In 2022, approximately 150 protesters gathered outside the gates of Nationals Park. Climate Defiance is hoping to more than double that number by recruiting interested Nationals fans with posters outside of the ballpark and tapping into the network of DC climate organizations and past Climate Defiance disruptors.

The upcoming protest is not without its detractors. In slightly more than one year of organizing, Climate Defiance has attracted the intense ire of right wing media, as well as ruffled feathers among more liberal circles. The group targets politicians on both sides of the aisle, including former Deputy Secretary of the Interior Tommy Beaudreau, a Democrat, who was a central figure in the approval of the controversial Alaskan oil development named the Willow Project.

The group’s allies, however, point to how effective Climate Defiance’s controversial actions have been. Just 15 days after Climate Defiance disrupted five different items of Beaudreau’s calendar in the same day, he resigned from his position. Perhaps more significantly, the group was influential in President Biden’s decision to pause exports of liquified natural gas (LNG). The White House quoted Climate Defiance in a briefing on the day Biden stopped LNG exports, and the organization received praise from US Representative Ro Khanna for the group’s pressure on the White House.

The direct, in-your-face disruptive action that Climate Defiance is known for is something that Nelson thinks is needed in this time of climate emergency.

“We’re at a point where the climate crisis is here, it’s now, so it’s urgent enough that we need to be showing up at the climate criminals’ workplaces, at their events, anytime they go in public,” said Nelson. “We want to make sure that the [climate criminals] can’t go out in public and live their normal lives and continue the way they are without acknowledging what’s happening and doing something about it.”

Climate Defiance is looking at the upcoming blockade of the Congressional Baseball Game as a big concentration of individuals the organization can reach with its message at the same time. The fact that they are playing a “silly game” in the words of Nelson makes the opportunity all the sweeter for the group. But there’s an even deeper meaning to going after the Congressional Baseball Game that Climate Defiance hasn’t leaned into in its communications: baseball, along with burning fossil fuels, is America’s National Pastime.

Baseball has become a classic symbol of Americana over its long history. The fossil fuel industry noticed, and developed ad campaigns aimed at positioning the industry as a parallel piece of Americana next to baseball. In the 1970s, Chevrolet coined the now-iconic campaign phrase, “Baseball, hotdogs, apple pie, and Chevrolet,” positioning the gas-guzzling automotive industry on par with baseball when people think of quintessentially American things. More recently, companies like CITGO, Marathon Petroleum, and Occidental Petroleum have inked significant sponsorship deals with MLB teams, cementing the relationship between the fossil fuel industry and baseball in the minds of the American public.

Disrupting the hallowed National Pastime in the nation’s capital to advocate for climate change is a natural and necessary extension of Climate Defiance’s organizing strategy. In fact, Nationals Park in Washington, DC is has a history of anti-fossil fuel activism beyond past Congressional Baseball game blockades. The Chesapeake Climate Action Network started the “Strike Out Exxon” campaign in 2008 when ExxonMobil launched an enormous advertising campaign within the ballpark. That campaign succeeded in greatly reduced Exxon advertising within the stadium, a signal that disrupting business as usual at baseball games can have meaningful impacts on how the fossil fuel industry operates.

In 2022, Democratic representative from Texas Colin Allred addressed that year’s climate blockade, saying, “Every American has the right to express themselves within certain confines, but I think interrupting a charity baseball game isn’t really the best way to do that.” The fossil fuel industry’s tight-knit relationship with baseball and the past precedent for protesting fossil fuels at Nationals Park, however, shows that there could not be a more appropriate place for Climate Defiance to blockade and disrupt the action. On June 12th, the message from Climate Defiance will ring loud and clear: while the world burns, those with the power make impactful change instead opt to play a game.

Until recently, carbon capture technology has lurked on the fringes of sustainability efforts across the world, as technological limitations restricted its use to the industrial sector. More recently, however, massive lobbying and investment by fossil fuel companies and US Congress has pushed carbon capture technology into the mainstream. New technologies are beginning to enter the marketplace, like Direct Air Capture, that remove carbon directly from the atmosphere rather than factory smokestacks. The captured carbon is then liquified and injected deep underground into porous rock where it is permanently stored.

1PointFive is looking to build the largest Direct Air Capture facility ever and establish the United States as a global leader in developing carbon capture technology. Named after the widely-recognized international goal to stay under 1.5°C of global warming, 1PointFive currently has plans to open a facility in West Texas by 2025. The West Texas facility the company calls “Stratos” will capture 500,000 metric tons of carbon per year, equivalent to approximately 10,000 US households’ annual carbon footprint.

While opening the biggest Direct Air Capture facility in the US is notable on its own, the manner in which 1PointFive has publicized its brand and technology is even more fascinating. On March 7th, just one month after Occidental Petroleum and the Houston Astros unveiled a uniform advertisement expanding their partnership, 1PointFive and the Astros announced a three year carbon capture agreement, with the Astros purchasing “carbon dioxide removal credits” to offset the team’s emissions from travel and stadium energy use. Notably, 1PointFive is a subsidiary of Occidental Petroleum, acting as the carbon capture wing of the oil company.

1PointFive’s press release announcing the partnership notes that the agreement is a first of its kind in the baseball world, and would have been the first in North American sports if the NFL’s Houston Texans hadn’t announced a partnership with 1PointFive a few months earlier. The company’s partnership with the Astros appears be just the beginning of 1PointFive’s entry into the baseball environment, as the blue 1PointFive logo is plastered on the outfield and Jumbotron at the New York Met’s home stadium, Citi Field.

1PointFive’s big push in the baseball space appears to be an astute reading of the baseball market’s openness to carbon capture technology. Over the last several years, MLB teams have been disproportionally publicizing and purchasing carbon credits in comparison with the rest of the major North American sports leagues. The Boston Red Sox announced in 2022 that a portion of every ticket sold would go towards purchasing carbon credits from Aspiration, a company that sells some of the highest-quality carbon credits on the market. Rather than chemically capturing carbon from the air like 1PointFive, companies like Aspiration fund ecosystem projects that capture carbon out of the air, like re-forestation in previously deforested areas.

The teams that have engaged with carbon capture and crediting thus far, the Astros, Mets, and Red Sox, represent 10% of MLB teams; the only other league that has even one team purchasing or publicizing carbon credits is the NFL, with the aforementioned Texans standing alone. The NHL has the Seattle Kraken, who play in Climate Pledge Arena, but all of the zero-carbon commitments the Kraken make only relate to the arena itself, rather than the other operations of the team like air travel. MLB’s three franchises publicizing carbon credits place the league head and shoulders above the other “Big Four” North American sports leagues.

While at first it seems unclear why 1PointFive chose baseball as the company’s preferred advertising avenue, digging below the surface into the emerging advertising strategies of the oil and gas industry sheds light on 1PointFive’s push. An article published by Tisha Schuller and Kelsey Grant of Adamantine Energy titled “Baseball, Apple Pie, and Carbon Credits” outlines how they believe oil companies should engage in “unconventional partnerships” to highlight the industry’s sustainability measures. Adamantine Energy is a consulting firm that helps oil companies with sustainability goals. Schuller, the company’s founder, believes that oil and gas companies are “uniquely positioned for real decarbonization.”

Schuller’s advice to oil companies to engage in “unconventional partnerships” is important when analyzing 1PointFive’s relationships with MLB teams. Shuller mentions that these partnerships will generate controversy, conversations, “broadened perspectives,” and “novel solutions.” By making a push into the MLB advertising sphere, 1PointFive is generating conversations about carbon emissions, carbon credits, and sustainability action in a sector that has not engaged with those topics in a significant way. Borrowing a phrase from Shuller’s article, 1PointFive is staking a claim to the MLB marketplace “before today’s novel ideas become tomorrow’s expectations.”

More than just staking a claim into an untapped advertising arena, 1PointFive is associating itself with a core piece of Americana. The company is hoping that of some of the shine of “America’s Pastime” rubs off on carbon capture. Like the “Baseball, Apple Pie, and Carbon Credits” headline suggests, associating carbon capture and carbon credits with something as “American” as baseball helps normalize those relatively new and technical concepts with a broader audience. 1PointFive is hoping that fans of the Mets and Astros will become familiarized with the company’s carbon capture brand, and more easily accept and understand the widespread use of carbon credits and carbon capture technology.

It remains to be seen whether 1PointFive’s bet will pay off, as the company’s first Direct Air Capture facility is not yet online and the advertising blitz is only a season old. Regardless of whether the move pays off, however, 1PointFive has transformed the landscape for sustainability advertisements in Major League Baseball. By making such a big marketing push, 1PointFive seems to have successfully planted the idea in the minds of MLB advertising executives that engaging with carbon capture technology and purchasing credits can be a great thing for baseball teams. Instigating those conversations in MLB teams’ business offices is a hugely important step for sustainability in baseball, with plenty of other sustainable advertisers undoubtedly waiting in the wings.

Yesterday, Southern California was hit by Hurricane Hilary, the region’s first tropical storm in almost a century, bringing record amounts of rain and significant flooding to the area. On Saturday, Major League Baseball proactively rescheduled three Sunday games originally slated to be played in Los Angeles, Anaheim, and San Diego, aiming to avoid a scheduling headache by playing three doubleheaders on Saturday before the storm arrived. The hope was that by avoiding games on Sunday, the two Southern California teams scheduled to host games this week, the Los Angeles Angels and the San Diego Padres, would be able to have their fields ready for the start of their Monday series.

Unfortunately, the Angels announced at 10am P.T. that tonight’s game versus the Cincinnati Reds would be postponed and played as part of a doubleheader on Wednesday. Angel Stadium’s drainage system was unable to properly drain the 2 inches of rain that Orange County received during the storm. This means that in a five day span, the Angels will have played two doubleheaders, an incredibly grueling gauntlet this late in the season, particularly for a team with dwindling playoff aspirations.

The team has little choice, however. At this point in the season, scheduling disruptions are difficult to deal with, and limited off-days leave doubleheaders one of the only ways for the league to squeeze in make-up games. A further wrinkle complicating things is that this is the only time the Reds and the Angels play each other all season, meaning there’s no flexibility to tack an extra game onto a series later in the season. The Angels need to find a way to drain Angel Stadium’s field and get it prepared for games on Tuesday and Wednesday, or else MLB will have to get creative to fit the series into the two teams’ schedules.

This is not the first time the league has dealt with hurricanes and flooding affecting the ability to play games. Almost exactly six years ago, Houston was hit by Hurricane Harvey, triggering widespread and fatal flooding. While the Houston Astros were scheduled to return home from a road trip, the flooding made the team unable to do so, and MLB moved three games between the Astros and the Texas Rangers from Houston to Tampa Bay in order to fit the games in.

Thankfully, Southern California’s situation isn’t as extreme Houston’s six years ago and the Angels will likely be able to drain the field prior to Tuesday’s game. This storm, however, is giving MLB’s rigid scheduling procedures a climate-resiliency stress-test. With extreme weather events happening more often and in increasingly unusual locations, this summer’s string of scorching heat waves, devastating wildfires, and record-breaking tropical storms is the new normal rather than an extreme outlier. Future planning in all sectors, including sports, must grapple with this reality.

MLB’s current schedule leaves little room for flexibility. MLB teams only have 25 off-days per season, including the All-Star Break. So, on average, MLB teams have 21 regularly scheduled days off throughout a 162 game season. Many teams also need to make-up a rainout or two in April, further cramping scheduling flexibility as the season reaches the late summer. A new layer further straining MLB’s scheduling flexibility is the new “balanced schedule.” Beginning this season, every team plays all 29 other teams at least once, an increase from the old system where teams would only face 20 different opponents. This new schedule means teams must add several additional cities to their travel itineraries, increasing scheduling complexity and reducing flexibility.

As MLB’s scheduling rigidity has increased, events that could cancel games have also increased. Hurricanes are worsening and becoming more frequent and wildfires are choking more cities with smoke, with no indications of slowing down. MLB has already faced criticism from players and coaches about the league’s smoke safety protocols, and could hear grumblings out of the Angels clubhouse about two doubleheaders in five days.

The most obvious solution the league could adopt is a return to a 154 game schedule. After professional baseball in the US consolidated into MLB in 1903, teams played 154 game seasons until the league expanded in 1961. In fact, the proposal to reduce games is already under consideration by the league. MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred expressed his openness to the schedule returning to 154 games earlier this season, albeit to ease the burden of a potential increase of international travel rather than enhance the schedule’s climate resiliency. Manfred’s openness to shortening the schedule does demonstrate, however, that if Hurricane Hilary and other climate events continue to put an increased strain on a 162 game schedule, MLB might look at increasing its scheduling flexibility in order to build its climate resiliency. After a flurry of double-headers and postponements in the wake of Hurricane Hilary, the league should act sooner rather than later.

This Canadian wildfire season has been the worst on record, and the resulting smoke has caused Air Quality Indexes (AQIs) across the United States to spike past healthy levels. Major League Baseball is not immune from these air quality issues, as much as it might like to be. Although players have been grumbling about safety concerns regarding wildfire smoke for several years, MLB and MLB Players Association (MLBPA) have yet to publish a standardized protocol on how to deal with games facing air quality concerns.

In Pittsburgh on Thursday, June 29th, Pirates outfielder Andrew McCutchen made a statement by wearing a mask while running the bases. A player known for labor advocacy on the diamond, McCutchen expressed that “not enough concern” was placed on player safety when making the decision to play Thursday night’s game against the San Diego Padres. In cases like Thursday’s smoky atmosphere, McCutchen emphasized to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that “we don’t have to get the game in,” taking aim at MLB’s fear of revenue loss due to cancelled games.

In similar smoky conditions at Wrigley Field in Chicago several days earlier (the Air Quality Index was measured at 174, which is deemed “Unhealthy” by the EPA), MLB considered cancelling a game but eventually moved forward as planned. Chicago Cubs manager David Ross told The Athletic that the conditions were “not ideal.” Opposing manager Rob Thompson of the Philadelphia Phillies said he could smell the smoke the whole game, but said that “as long as it’s safe for the players, you play.”

While Thompson notes that MLB is thinking about player safety when deciding whether to play games in questionable conditions, the process for deciding what qualifies as “unsafe” is ambiguous. Currently, it appears that players discuss amongst themselves about the air quality, and each team’s MLBPA representative takes those thoughts to a pregame conversation with the MLB Commissioner’s office, who has the power to cancel games. According to Phillies outfielder Kyle Schwarber, however, the final call is not up to the players. He told The Athletic, “We can tell them what we prefer, but at the end of the day, it’s going to be the health (experts) to make the decision if it’s good enough to play.”

Unlike rain delays, which have a formalized and public procedure, MLB is currently figuring out smoke delays and cancellations on the fly. Cubs infielder Nico Hoerner told The Athletic that “until somebody goes out and sets a standard of what that is, it’s just an arbitrary line. We’re all trying to figure it out together.”

The “arbitrary line” does not seem to be working for everyone. After Thursday night’s game in Pittsburgh, Pirates catcher Austin Hedges expressed his displeasure at MLB for moving forward with a game he felt was "kind of scary” to play in. Hedges told Pittsburgh’s 97.5 The Fan radio station that he believes MLB’s profit motive “takes precedent over player health.” It’s not difficult to see Hedges’s point of view, considering that physical exertion (like playing baseball) is one of the things that health agencies recommend avoiding in smoky conditions.

Part of the problem facing the sport is a lack of smoke safety education for players worried about taking the field. Several players have shared that they don’t know what is safe and what isn’t, with Cubs outfielder Ian Happ wondering if any studies had been published and Hoerner saying that “air quality numbers and things like that are not something I’m really familiar with.” When discussing the pregame conversations in the Pittsburgh locker room on Thursday, Andrew McCutchen described little substantiative information being shared and no access to any health experts who may be consulting with the league. Regardless of the actual condition of the air, having adequate safety information communicated to the players before taking the field seems like a no-brainer for the league.

This confusing experience for players demonstrates that even with several years of warning signs, MLB has been caught flat-footed by the smoke. The first signs of a potentially smoky future came in 2020 when the Seattle Mariners first dealt with serious air quality concerns at T-Mobile Park. In September that year, after a game in Seattle that caused shortness of breath for A’s starting pitcher Jesús Luzardo, MLB moved two games between the Mariners and the Oakland Athletics to San Francisco to avoid unhealthy air conditions in Seattle. Last season, the first playoff game in Seattle in more than 20 years was veiled in a noticeable layer of wildfire smoke.

Digging into the AQI readings in the cities where MLB has cancelled or relocated games unearths an approximate AQI limit of 200 where the league feels comfortable playing games. In fact, Bob Melvin, the Oakland A’s manager in 2020, said that an AQI of 200 was his understanding of MLB’s air quality threshold, although when the A’s and Mariners took the field in Seattle on September 14th, 2020 the AQI read 220. This season, games in cities with AQI readings over 300 have been cancelled, while games in cities hovering in the 150-180 AQI range have gone forward as planned, indicating that 200 could still be the level MLB deems acceptable.

Even if MLB does have an established policy of not playing games with an AQI over 200, that may not be enough to properly minimize risks to player safety. The EPA has six air quality thresholds, and 200 AQI is the border between “Unhealthy” and “Very Unhealthy.” For the 150-180 range, where games like the June 29th game in Pittsburgh fall, the EPA recommends reducing the amount of intense outdoor activity. Professional sports would definitely fall under that category, indicating that perhaps MLB should return to the drawing board, if the 200 AQI threshold is in fact the rule.

MLB will likely have more opportunities this season to develop and refine new smoke procedures, with scientists warning that wildfire smoke may hover over the US for most of the summer due to wind patterns and continued burning in Canada. If those predictions hold true, MLB must progress past its current policy of “we’re all trying to figure it out as we go” and develop a more serious and transparent set of standards and operating procedures. If MLB is looking to avoid players continuing to criticize its safety protocols, a clearly communicated and well reasoned safety protocol that minimizes health risks for the players would go a long way to restoring trust between concerned players and the league.

In the meantime, fires in Canada show no signs of slowing down, potentially causing additional games to be played in the smoke. Even the MLB All-Star Game, happening in Seattle next week, could be in danger of a smoke-out. Local agencies have begun to prepare Seattle residents for the beginning of smoke season with air quality expected to worsen after the Fourth of July. MLB would do well to follow in the footsteps of the Seattle public health agencies and provide players with the information and protocols they need to feel safe in advance of the All-Star game and second half of the season. The longer the league waits to address the issue, the more negative attention the league draws from player and fan criticism, and the less it looks like the league cares about the safety of the players and fans.

Despite the “reverse boycott” held by Oakland fans on June 13th, every indication points to the Oakland A’s relocating to Las Vegas after Nevada Governor Joe Lombardo signed a $380 million public handout on Friday, gifting A’s owner John Fisher funds for a stadium in downtown Las Vegas. Before the A’s officially bid Oakland goodbye, Fisher still must submit a relocation application to the MLB Commissioner’s office and receive the approval of at least 23 other MLB owners.

While the owners will likely approve of Fisher’s plan and finally bring to an end the protracted relocation process, the move has been decried by players, fans, and media members as soul-less and greedy on the part of Fisher and MLB. One concern that has received less attention from the industry is the climate disaster MLB is setting up for themselves. When the A’s complete their move to Las Vegas, the city would immediately become one of the warmest locales in the league during baseball season, with average summer highs topping 100°F. Vegas is not only battling increasingly scorching summers, but a dwindling water supply. The city gets almost all of its water from Lake Mead, the reservoir filled by the Colorado River. Lake Mead has suffered from record low levels of water in recent years as the American Southwest struggles through its driest period in 1200 years.

It should come as no surprise, then, that Las Vegas was singled out as one of the cities most at risk of becoming inhospitable for sports teams as a result of climate change in a 2021 Defector article examining the climate futures of several sports cities. The A’s are not ignorant to Las Vegas’s worsening climate conditions, as evidenced by their proposed stadium plans. The proposed stadium would boast a climate controlled interior and a partially retractable roof akin to that of Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas. The Texas Rangers were forced to build a climate-controlled stadium after their previous open-air stadium, opened in 1994, did not have a way to keep fans cool enough to attend Rangers games amid soaring summer temperatures in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

Heat is not the only problem the Las Vegas A’s could be dealing with in their new city. As previously mentioned, water presents a looming problem for the future of Las Vegas. Water is in such short supply that Nevada lawmakers passed a law giving power to the Southern Nevada Water Authority to more strictly enforce annual household water usage limits, in addition to already-passed regulations such as a ban on watering residential lawns. Sports teams are not immune to suffering from the water shortage, as the Las Vegas Raiders (who also relocated from Oakland to Vegas) struggled to maintain Allegiant Stadium’s natural grass during the last NFL season. Plans for additional water consumption to shore up the grass and cool off fans at the stadium did not go over well with some community members. The water usage for the A’s proposed stadium would undoubtedly be intensely scrutinized.

In addition to the heat and water concerns, the A’s arrival in Las Vegas could affect the local air quality. A’s team president Dave Kaval predicts that the A’s will bring 400,000 tourists to the city every year. While he does not give details about how he expects those fans to travel to Las Vegas, approximately one half of visitors to Las Vegas in 2021 arrived by car according to GLS Research. As the Las Vegas Raiders have seen, fans from California will arrive in droves to watch their favorite California teams play in Nevada, causing thousands of additional car trips along I-15 into Vegas.

The American Lung Association gave Las Vegas an “F” in air quality, scoring particularly poorly on ozone levels. Car exhaust is a huge component of Las Vegas air quality problems, and the effects are disproportionally suffered by poor Las Vegans. One such resident, Cinthia Moore, described her experience living next to the highway to The Guardian in 2021. Moore says that she and her son have experienced migraines, persistent allergies, and breathing problems since moving to Las Vegas, and that her neighbors who live even closer to the roadway have it worse. She’s worried about the future of her neighborhood if pollution keeps increasing, saying “there are folks who are living right there and it’s going into their homes and they are experiencing pollution every day.” If Dave Kaval’s prediction of 400,000 additional tourists coming to the city to see A’s games comes true, folks like Moore and her neighbors will suffer the pollution consequences.

Even in the face of Las Vegas’s scorching heat, dwindling water supply, and air quality issues, MLB is still pressing forward with the A’s relocation bid. The only remaining hurdle John Fisher has to clear is securing a 75% vote by MLB owners to approve the relocation. In one last piece of hope for fans hoping the A’s stay put, some resistance is forming among big-market MLB owners. According to MLB insider Ken Rosenthal, some owners may object to the move to Las Vegas because of the small market Las Vegas represents; compared to the 6th largest market in the nation in Oakland, Las Vegas ranks only 40th.

While uncertainty hangs in the air about when exactly the relocation vote will take place, one thing is for certain: the A’s will see out the remainder of their lease on the Oakland Coliseum, which expires at the conclusion of the 2024 season. For at least the next year and a half, the A’s can savor the cool Bay Area breeze before embarking for the scorching desert.

Last week, a group of Dartmouth researchers published a study in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society claiming that climate change caused more than 500 additional home runs since 2000. While people can debate the specific statistical conclusions of the study, the qualitative result that baseballs will fly further and home runs will increase as average temperatures rise is true. The study warns that in a worst-case trajectory, there could be as many as 5% more home runs than normal by 2050 and 10% by 2100, a scenario MLB should be looking to avoid.

For a study that warns of a looming problem facing baseball, there has been a lack of sports media coverage. Headlines appear in the Associated Press, Fox News, Washington Post, NPR, Forbes, NBC News, and Science News but not sports sites. There is zero mention of the study in major outlets like The Athletic, Sports Illustrated, Fangraphs, and Bleacher Report. Barstool Sports and ESPN are the only major sports sites to publish something about the study, with Barstool’s post poking fun at environmentalists rather than critically engaging with the study and ESPN’s just a rerun of AP’s article.

When a climate study about a sport gains traction in the mainstream media, why do major sports websites ignore it? Sports media has a history of ignoring climate change’s effects on baseball. When legendary TV broadcaster Tim McCarver dared to mention that climate change might have caused several home runs he didn’t expect in a broadcast in 2012, his comment was widely ridiculed. Other outlets outside of sports like the Washington Post provided credence to McCarver’s hypothesis at the time, but those articles were written by journalists covering weather and climate rather than sports.

The lack of engagement with climate change by sports media is puzzling. It is clear that players and coaches have opinions about climate change and the effects they witness on the field. In Seth Borenstein’s article (another climate writer) in the Associated Press, players and coaches say that their experience on the field matches the conclusions of the Dartmouth study.

Baseball players and executives have varied reactions to the study. Borenstein talked to Colorado Rockies pitcher Brent Suter, who said that the amount of extra home runs caused by climate change sounds like a lot, but seemed plausible. He added, “I remember pitching some games I was just, like ‘This does not feel like normal heat. It’s crazy hot.’” Philadelphia Phillies executive Dave Dombrowki added his perspective from a front office, telling Borenstein that his office agrees that climate has an impact, and “has felt that way for years.” David Cone, New York Yankees legend and current broadcaster, expressed skepticism that climate change is causing more home runs, but also said he “wouldn’t shoo it away.”

There are three vastly different perspectives from the baseball community depicted in Borenstein’s story, each one demonstrating that compelling conversations about climate change are happening in the clubhouses and front offices across the league. The quotes inspire more questions. Have Suter’s teammates had similar experiences with heat? What do other front offices think about climate change? What do retired players remember about the climate when they were playing and how is it different today? The AP article is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to stories that baseball media could write but currently ignore.

While sports media might ignore climate change in baseball, right-wing outlets certainly do not. Articles mocking the recent study appear in the New York Post, the Washington Times, and MRCTV. Even Fox News contributor Greg Gutfeld discussed the study on his show Gutfeld! — a late night program on Fox News. Discourse on Twitter about climate change and home runs is dominated by conservatives bashing the climate movement for invading baseball and piling onto scientists sharing the study.

Unlike the AP article, these media outlets lack the perspective of those directly involved in the baseball world. Cheryl Chumley of the Washington Times claims that “climate alarmists” are “cashing in” on baseball, without elaborating on who these “climate alarmists” are or how they plan on profiting off of climate change in baseball. The New York Post similarly ignores the experiences of the baseball community, instead boosting the perspective of a scientist who once claimed that greenhouse gasses are not the cause of climate change. Usually, the right-wing media can find a poster-child to provide them with juicy quotes, but not a single player is quoted denying that climate change is causing more home runs in any of their pieces.

It is a failure of sports media that the discourse surrounding this study is being dominated by substance-less right-wing outrage. Rather than having an informed and nuanced discussion about climate change’s effect on baseball, climate scientists are called “stupid” and dragged through the mud, with no evidence or testimony from the baseball community substantiating the climate denial. As the AP story demonstrates, the clubhouse conversations across the league are multifaceted and informed by actual experience, unlike the discourse unfolding online and in the media.

Bringing those nuanced perspectives and conversations to the fans’ attention is baseball media’s responsibility. As climate change continues to worsen and increasingly affect people’s lives, baseball fans deserve to be aware of how their favorite sport is being impacted. It is time for baseball media to rise to the occasion and report on these impacts, because it’s clear that climate change isn’t leaving baseball alone anymore.

On March 30th, the First District Court of Appeals cleared a major roadblock to making the proposed $12 billion revamp of the Oakland waterfront known as the Howard Terminal project a reality. After years of fighting by the East Oakland Stadium Alliance, their legal challenges to the City of Oakland’s Environmental Impact Review have finally concluded, paving the way for the city and the Oakland Athletics to come to a funding agreement that would allow the project to finally become a reality.

The Howard Terminal project includes a new ballpark for the Oakland Athletics, thousands of housing units, new commercial spaces, and a refresh to a waterfront property no longer suitable for modern maritime use. The A’s have been looking to move out of the Oakland Coliseum into a waterfront ballpark for over two decades, with A’s owner John Fischer favoring Howard Terminal.

The project has run into several major problems, however. Legal challenges from the East Oakland Stadium Alliance, funding uncertainty, and threats of relocation loom over the team and the city as pressure mounts for a resolution. Fischer and MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred issued an ultimatum to the City of Oakland to figure out how to make Howard Terminal a reality or else he would move the team to Las Vegas — a process he has already started, with the location of a new domed stadium starting to solidify.

What is the East Oakland Stadium Alliance (EOSA), the organization most vocally opposed to the Howard Terminal project? While fashioning themselves to be a group of community partners saving blue collar jobs in the Port of Oakland and preserving the history of Oakland Coliseum, the group is actually a front for Schnitzer Steel and other shipping interests attempting to keep the stadium and accompanying developments away from their territory.

The partners listed on EOSA’s website include Schnitzer Steel, SSA Marine, and several trucking associations. Although the EOSA claims to care about the environmental consequences such as “pollutant emissions that far exceed the city’s thresholds,” the members of the EOSA are the ones actually polluting Inner Oakland Harbor. Since 2000, Schnitzer Steel (whose facilities are directly adjacent to the Howard Terminal site) has violated environmental regulations 18 times, totaling over $13 million in penalties. The company doesn’t plan to stop polluting anytime soon. They won a lawsuit against the A’s just this January allowing them to continue processing allegedly hazardous materials on the harbor banks.

SSA Marine also boasts a murky past, with Blackstone (yes, that Blackstone) buying into SSA Marine’s parent company Carrix in 2019. Under the “Board of Directors” tab of SSA Marine’s website, the chairman listed is the Senior Managing Director of Blackstone Infrastructure. Twitter user Chris De Benedetti (who’s tweet thread on the EOSA is extremely informative) highlights Blackstone’s role in the housing shortage crushing California today. How curious that Blackstone, through the EOSA, is working to block the construction of 3000 new housing units along the Oakland waterfront.

The trucking and logistics companies that participate in the EOSA have legitimate pedestrian safety concerns, although they can be addressed with improved pedestrian, bicycle, and traffic infrastructure. Rather than advocating for these necessary infrastructure improvements to make pedestrian travel safe, the EOSA has used this solvable issue as an excuse to derail the entire project, basing their court challenges on a lack of detail about pedestrian infrastructure in Oakland’s environmental review (EIR). An organization serious about keeping the A’s rooted in Oakland would explore creative infrastructure solutions rather than seek to derail the entire project.

To recap, the East Oakland Stadium Alliance is a group including polluters and multi-billion dollar companies who use solvable problems like pedestrian infrastructure to prevent a currently unusable piece of port property from being given new life as a thriving commercial and entertainment district. Luckily for A’s fans, the EOSA’s most recent loss in court appears to remove any last legal recourse the EOSA had left, and paves the way for the City of Oakland to negotiate with the team on the last steps for approval.

The next steps for the city and the A’s are perhaps the most politically difficult: hammering out a funding agreement. Thus far, the city has secured over $370 million in grants for off-site infrastructure improvements like those that would address the pedestrian safety concerns brought up by the EOSA, but some cost estimates on that infrastructure work have run as high as $600 million, leaving a budget hole that needs to be made up somehow. According to Oakland City Council member Carroll Fife, the member who represents the land that Howard Terminal would sit on, “the ball is in [the A’s] court,” when it comes to making a proposal to the city.

If and when Oakland and the A’s reach an agreement, the next step is to acquire the plethora of permits required from various agencies to break ground. There is some optimism that this process could go smoothly, as entities like the Bay Conservation and Development Committee and Alameda County have already signaled their approval for the project.

For the A’s fans who’ve watched John Fischer trade away their favorite players, send the A’s into the American League West cellar, and begin to explore Las Vegas stadium sites, it might be hard to look at the various roadblocks the Howard Terminal project has encountered and feel optimistic. It’s important to remember that the Port of Oakland supports the project, the City of Oakland voted to certify the EIR, and all lawsuits have been resolved regarding the EIR’s sufficiency. There doesn’t appear to be anything else left for the EOSA to challenge, hundreds of millions of grant dollars have been secured by the city, and the newly elected mayor of Oakland said the project was one of her biggest priorities. At this point, the only thing standing in the way of Howard Terminal becoming reality is John Fischer’s willingness to make an offer the city deems fair (he can certainly afford it). The A’s fans and the City of Oakland deserve it.

With climate change encroaching further into Americans’ lives than ever, baseball fans may be concerned about an oil company entering into America’s Pastime. Tonight, the Houston Astros will debut Occidental Petroleum’s uniform advertisement in Houston against the Chicago White Sox. While seven other teams will join them in debuting a uniform advertisement for Opening Day 2023, the Astros’ partnership stands out as Major League Baseball’s first uniform advertising partnership with an oil company.

While Occidental’s uniform patch may be new, the company’s relationship with the Astros first began in 2013 on “Community Leader Occidental Night.” Since then, the company that commonly goes by Oxy has been a large donor to the Astros Foundation, pledging more than $1 million annually. The beginning of this relationship coincided closely with Oxy’s corporate headquarters moving to Houston in 2014 after a century in Los Angeles.

Since 2013, the relationship has grown, with an Oxy billboard going up at Minute Maid Park in 2016 and the seven-year uniform agreement signed this year. Days after the uniform agreement became public, Oxy and the Astros announced the team would purchase Direct Air Carbon Capture Removal Credits from a subsidiary of Oxy for the next three years “as they work towards a carbon neutral footprint,” although just last week the New York Times published an article largely dismissing Direct Air Carbon Capture as a viable tool for carbon neutrality.

As the Astros appear to be deepening their ties with Oxy, both Astros fans and baseball fans across the country may want to know more about the history of the company behind Houston’s new sleeve patches.

Occidental Petroleum was founded in 1920 in California and rose to international prominence in the 1960s. During the 1980s, Oxy expanded its footprint in Colombia after it discovered and developed the Caño Limón oil field with Colombian state oil company Ecopetrol. The creation and operation of the Caño Limón pipeline turned the area into a hotbed of sabotage and conflict, resulting in a 1998 incident where an Oxy-backed defense contractor called AirScan allegedly assisted the Colombian military in the bombing of a civilian encampment near the pipeline. The bombing took the lives of 17 Colombians, including 6 children. Oxy is also known for repeatedly attempting to drill on U’wa homeland in Colombia, eventually giving into local and international pressure to pull out of the area.

This doesn’t take into account the incredibly devastating consequences of fossil fuel combustion. During the fourth quarter of 2022, Oxy was producing 1.2 million barrels of oil per day, putting it among the largest producers of oil in the United States. Fossil fuel combustion is causing myriad problems across the world, including and especially in Texas, with the notable example of Hurricane Harvey flooding being significantly worsened by climate change.

While business decisions like the selling of advertisements are often made mostly with profits in mind, the Astros made sure to highlight just how much the two organizations’ values lined up when announcing the new uniform ad. In a quote from Matt Young’s piece in the Houston Chronicle, Astros VP of Marketing Communications Anita Sehgal said this about Oxy: “They have a shared value of giving back to the community… We felt like it was the right fit, and they felt it was the right fit.” Astros VP of Corporate Partnerships Jeff Stewart goes a step further and says the Astros are “proud of our longstanding relationship with Oxy.”

If the Astros leadership is indeed proud of this agreement, baseball fans should understand the implications of supporting such an organization. Oxy has a long and troubled history when it comes to human rights, environmental degradation, and carbon emissions. In the words of an Astros exec, partnering with this company is the “right fit.” But will Oxy be the “right fit” for the fans?

On Monday, MLB released the hats teams will use during 2023 spring training. Like last year, the hats feature a mesh similar to what is found on a trucker hat. At first glance, the mesh may look strange and uncomfortable. But with temperatures in spring training locations steadily creeping upward, MLB had to make a change.

Every spring, 15 teams arrive in Arizona to prepare for the new season. Arizona is a logical location to host spring training, providing sunny and dry weather perfect for baseball. Recently, however, global warming has begun to affect Arizona, with 8 of the state's 10 hottest years on record occurring since 2007. Of more concern to MLB players, one study from Arizona State shows that baseball fields can be 5°F warmer than the forecasted temperature on any given day.

In 2022, MLB debuted mesh hats for use in Spring Training. Designed for enhanced breathability and comfort for players, the hats ruffled feathers among fans. Many derided the cheap appearance of the mesh, the hats’ resemblance to stadium giveaways, and the increased retail price on top of it all. Some players also protested the hats, with bald-headed White Sox third basemen Jake Burger being chief among them due to his unfortunate sunburn.

But how do the rest of the players feel? Former New York Mets starting pitcher Taijuan Walker declared them the "best spring training hat they've made by far” when the mesh was first introduced in 2022. In fact, Walker may be in the majority, as there’s a sense among those close to players that most seem to like them. Heat has become a silently looming problem in MLB, with Los Angeles Angels Starting Pitcher Dylan Bundy exiting a regular-season game in 2021 due to heat exhaustion. As the climate keeps warming and summer heat waves become more common, heat will become a bigger issue for player safety.

The vocal minority of players who dislike the mesh will continue to decrease as Arizona temperatures keep warming. Over the last two years, Arizona averaged 125 days over 100°F (more than a third of the year) and 38 days (10% of the year) over 110°F. While most of these temperatures occur during the summer, participants in extended spring training and the Arizona Complex League will certainly appreciate the hat’s increased ventilation.

Discourse about the hats have mostly revolved around their appearance and the illusion that most players don’t like them. Less attention has been given to the fact that this is potentially the first measure MLB has implemented league wide as a result of climate change, and that this might be the first change of many to protect players’ safety going forward. The 2022 All-Star Game hats also featured the mesh, potentially signaling that all hats worn on the field will soon feature mesh panelling.

As players begin reporting for spring training over the next several weeks, hat discourse will inevitably come up again. Someone will follow in Jake Burger’s footsteps with a prominent sunburn, a few prominent players like Justin Verlander will continue to wear hats with a cotton backing. But underneath those surface-level narratives lies the reality of a changing climate affecting the sport of baseball and MLB’s first move in response.

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My name is Nat Lange, I’m a junior at Whitman College, and I think about baseball and climate change all day. It’s time I form those thoughts into a coherent and sharable piece for other people to read, so join me in exploring the connections between sport and our climate!

Why does this matter?

Climate change is affecting every aspect of our lives, including sports. Many leagues are beginning to experience the consequences of unmitigated fossil fuel consumption, and baseball is no exception. It is time to investigate the effects of climate change on baseball, what measures are in place to limit these effects, and what measures should be in place to protect players and the environment. The inverse is also true, baseball affects the climate. I will explore the ways that baseball reinforces the fossil fuel economy, and what actions teams and fans can take to break that pattern.

Who am I writing for?

My goal is to inspire baseball fans to think about more than just the wins, losses, and their favorite players, but also about the effect sports have on community and the environment. I also want to show climate-minded people that sports can and should be a part of a just transition movement. Inspired by Alex Bazeley and Bobby Wagner of Tipping Pitches, my goal is to bring people fresh and exciting content that both entertains and informs.

How often will I post?

I am a busy college student so I may post irregularly to start, but my goal is a weekly post in for the future. All of my content is currently free, I hope you enjoy it!