Baseball, Businesses, and the Hidden Game: What Sports Can Teach Us About Economic Inequality
Watching the Wrong Game
Baseball has always been more than just a game for me—it’s a memory, a connection, and, at one point, a dream. When I first arrived in the United States, stepping off the plane at Newark International Airport, my father’s passion for the Boston Red Sox was impossible to ignore. He’d sit me down to watch Pedro Martínez dominate hitters and Nomar Garciaparra dazzle us at shortstop. Pedro wasn’t just another Cy Young-winning legend—he was also my uncle’s neighbor back in the Dominican Republic! That added a whole new layer of pride.
As a 10-year-old, inspired by those games, I picked up a glove and joined Little League. My dad was my biggest fan, pushing me to dream big and refine my skills. I worked my way up to Pony League, and I was pretty good, too—until a car accident ruined my shoulder. And just like that, my baseball dreams were over, flushed like the hope of a ninth-inning rally with two outs and the bases loaded.
Still, my love for the game didn’t fade. Baseball—and later, Formula 1—remained my favorite sports. But as I grew older, I began to notice the parallels between these sports and the economy at large. Both are riddled with loopholes, massive inequalities, and structures that prioritize the ultra-rich over everyone else. Whether it’s billionaire team owners or corporate CEOs, the same dynamics play out: while we’re watching the game, they’re pulling the strings.
The Field vs. The Owners’ Box
On the field, baseball is about raw talent. It’s the perfect fastball, the well-timed steal, the impossible double play. As a kid, that’s all I saw—players putting everything on the line to win. But behind the scenes, there’s another game happening in the owners’ box. There, billionaires are debating salary caps, TV rights, and whether they’ll upgrade the stadium this year or just raise ticket prices again.
It’s the same story in our economy. Workers, like players, are hustling every day just to stay in the game. Meanwhile, the real winners—the owners, the CEOs, and the corporations—are playing on an entirely different field. They’re not sweating the details of day-to-day work; they’re figuring out how to squeeze every last dollar out of the system, while we’re left cheering from the stands, paying $18 for a hot dog.
Breaking the Salary Cap: Loopholes for the Rich
In baseball, salary caps are supposed to level the playing field. But come on—wealthy teams like the Yankees and Dodgers treat the luxury tax like a parking ticket. For them, it’s just a minor inconvenience on the road to building their superteam. Why? Because the payoff—more wins, more fans, and more brand value—is worth the price.
Sound familiar? That’s because businesses play by the same rules—or rather, break them. Billion-dollar corporations bypass regulations, exploit tax loopholes, and concentrate wealth in the hands of a few, all while selling us the narrative of “competition” and “free markets.” It’s not competition when one team has all the resources, just like it’s not a fair market when one company controls entire industries.
When My Baseball Dreams Ended, I Saw the Game Differently
After my shoulder injury, my dreams of being a baseball star were over. But my love for sports remained. Baseball and Formula 1 became my go-to escapes, even as I noticed the same economic dynamics shaping both worlds. In F1, just like in baseball, the teams with the biggest budgets often dominate, leaving smaller teams to fight for scraps. It’s frustrating to watch because deep down, we all love an underdog story—but the system isn’t designed for underdogs to win.
It’s the same in our economy. Small businesses are celebrated in name but crushed in practice. Workers are told they can achieve anything if they just work hard enough, but the truth is that the game is rigged. Whether it’s sports or business, the richest players have every advantage, while the rest of us are left playing catch-up.
Cost Caps for Businesses: A Fair Play Proposal
If baseball and F1 need cost caps to keep competition alive, why not apply the same logic to our economy? Imagine a world where corporations couldn’t endlessly hoard wealth or exploit loopholes to dominate the marketplace. Here’s what that might look like:
• Executive Compensation Caps: CEOs shouldn’t earn more in a day than their employees earn in a year. Let’s cap executive pay at a reasonable multiple of the median worker’s salary. And if they want a bonus? Maybe it’s tied to how well their workers are treated.
• Profit Margin Limits: Once a business hits a certain profit threshold, the excess gets reinvested into wages, local infrastructure, or climate initiatives. No more trillion-dollar profits while workers can’t afford housing.
• Environmental Caps: Think of these like pitch limits for pollution. Every corporation gets a set quota of emissions, and if they go over, they sit on the bench—preferably in the form of hefty penalties.
The Game We All Deserve
When I think back to my baseball dreams, I remember the joy of the game—the teamwork, the competition, and the thrill of a big win. That’s what sports should be about. And honestly, that’s what our economy should be about too: fair competition, opportunity for everyone, and the chance to succeed based on talent and effort, not just the size of your wallet.
Whether it’s baseball, Formula 1, or our daily lives, we need to rewrite the rules. Let’s stop cheering for a rigged game and start demanding one that works for all of us. Because at the end of the day, it’s not just about who’s on the field—it’s about making sure the game itself is fair.
