Yet another reason to be annoyed by (waves hands) all that

The shocking subhed: Bob Nightengale is right about something

When I’ve considered the pernicious effects of gambling’s hostile takeover of American sports, I mostly think about the person who really matters in all this: me. It’s annoying to me to have to hear about all this dumb shit all the time. It’s irritating to hear baseball get reduced down to an over/under or a money line. It’s aggravating to be constantly told that this is the real way to be a sports fan, that of course you should be using DraftKings, that you really want to try it in your heart and once you do you’ll never go back.

But I also think about other fans, the ones who don’t have the same instinctive aversion to being advertised at as I do, who do get on their phones during games and bet on whether the next guy will strike out or not. Not only are these people not getting to just experience something enjoyable, but they’re losing money in the process. The cash vacuum is right on top of their wallets, and enough people are telling them, “This is good, actually” that they think it might be true.

Who I generally don’t think about are the players. I mean, I see it as inevitable that some players will get caught up in it, but on the whole, it seems like we’re over here and they’re over there, and gambling is ruining things for us and not them.

Wrong! Because, as I know but never remember unless I’m specifically reminded about it, losing at gambling turns you into a fucking asshole.

In case you’re not a fan of clicking on links, Bob Nightengale quoted multiple Giants in his article about the harassment that players are getting from gamblers who’ve lost money betting on them. Here’s just one of the three Giants he quotes:

Said Giants veteran reliever Tyler Rogers: "I had to make my Venmo private because I’d blow a game or something, and people would find me on Venmo, and they’d send me requests. 'Hey, you cost me $1,500. You better pay me back.'

"It definitely gets people a lot more upset than it used to."

Fifteen hundred dollars! That’s so much money! Why is anyone gambling that much on one regular season baseball game? And if Rogers’ anecdote happened this year (which we don’t know), then it was a game between the Giants and Mets, two incredibly mediocre teams. If it happened last year, then the games someone could claim Rogers blew, leading to a Giants loss, were against the Cubs, Diamondbacks, Padres, Marlins, and Braves. I know the Diamondbacks made the World Series, but the only actually good team in that list was the Braves, and honestly, who the hell would bet on the 2023 Giants over the 2023 Braves?

The answer, then, is don’t gamble on this shit. You have a gambling problem, and you need to stop. If you are threatening or harassing a baseball player — Matt Chapman said that he also got Venmo requests after bad games — then you are betting money you cannot afford to lose on games that you should not have this strong of an opinion about.

But as we all know, that’s too pat of an answer. Gambling addictions are insidious; they worm their way into you, sink those hooks in deep, and never let go. The gambling becomes the point of everything you’re doing, and any person or thing that gets in your way is an obstacle that has to be overcome, or an error that has to be corrected. It starts to make sense, then, that Tyler Rogers has to personally pay for the money he cost you. It makes sense that you would yell at Logan Webb and tell him to hit the over on strikeouts. This is the point! This is what they’re there for!

There have always been annoying fans, and with social media and players being more accessible than ever to the general public, they were always going to get worse and more entitled. But with the mainstreaming of gambling, and the way the leagues — not just MLB, but also the NFL and NBA — have embraced it as a way of enhancing short-term revenue, it’s gotten worse. Being ignored by a guy you’ve decided is your friend is bad, but being ignored by a guy you’ve decided is your friend who also owes you money just because you believed in him? Well, he’s got to hear about this!

Baseball is in bed with gambling, and it’s hurting the sport. This is the part where I would come up with some kind of plausible solution that takes stock of the current situation and uses it a baseline for a better way forward, except the better way forward is to get out of that bed, which the league is not going to do. If you refuse to address the causes of the problems you’re experiencing, then you will keep suffering from those problems forever. That’s where we are. No one with the power to change things cares. I don’t see why they ever will.

I guess the silver lining in all of this is that a bunch of rich assholes are making money. Sure, they’re bankrupting their future revenue sources for it, but that’s a small price to pay. If you can get three extra golden eggs today by killing the goose that lays them, well, you’ve got to do it. That’s just smart business.