MLB issued a statement Tuesday informing the Yankees directly that teams are not permitted to use players’ images in the sale of alcohol.
According to a report from Newsday, Major League Baseball took….. you know what…. I actually can’t do this….. The three lines I put together taking this seriously are all I have in me.
I have a million thoughts on how ridiculous of a story this is but I can’t even take it seriously enough to write a basic overview.
Cliffs Notes: Yankees have these machines that 3D print players’ faces in foam of beers. They used them Monday for a media event at Yankee Stadium. MLB said you can’t do that.
Here is the tweet from Newsday so you can see the beers. Below that, is basically a roast of everyone involved.
*Deep breath*
Here we go…
1. They were this close to actually moving a couple kegs of Budweiser at Yankee Stadium this season. But now that you can’t even get Aaron Judge’s face imprinted in foam, how are they supposed to turn a profit?
2. Major League Baseball had zero problems with the collusion between Derek Jeter and the Yankees that sent Giancarlo Stanton to New York. You can get him by any means necessary, put him in the cleanup spot, play him at DH or right field, but try to put him in your beer and MLB draws the line.
3. The 2018 Yankees have their lowest team payroll since 1992. With all that extra cash burning a hole in their pocket, they clearly invested some time in coming up with the dumbest possible way to spend it. And I have to tip my cap because the Beer Ripple Machine is tough to beat. Those machines are $3,000-5,000 apiece plus a $1,500 yearly subscription fee (what??) and I’m guessing they didn’t buy just one.
If you put a 9-year-old in charge of your budget and he bought himself a go-cart and a 100-pound bag of skittles, it’d be a lateral move from this.
4. If the last couple years of A-Rod’s contract and one of these $3-5K machines ever run into each other at a party, they’d both immediately go in for a huge high-five and hug. No need to exchange words or introduce themselves. Just real recognize real.
After the greeting, then they’d proceed to reminiscing, starting every other sentence with things like “Man, can you believe they paid us to…”
5. Me at Yankee Stadium concessions:
"“Excuse me, I would like to exchange this beer. I ordered an Aaron Judge and this is quite clearly an Aroldis Chapman. Plus, the gentleman that poured it was a little reckless with the handoff and the top half of the face basically looks smudged out. This beverage is not up to my Instagram standards and half the reason I’m paying $9 for a beer with someone’s face in it is so I can Gram it. Thanks for understanding.”"
6. Bartenders should unite and file a class-action lawsuit against the company that makes these machines. No more pouring a beer and sliding it across the bar. This just doubled or tripled the number of steps and time it takes to get a customer a beer. Now every bartender in Nashville is going to have to wait for a machine to 3D print “The Music City” into the foam of every IPA he/she pours. Plus, the “No we’re the Music City. Home of country music. Carrie Underwood lives here, Tim McGraw and Faith Hill, Keith Urban, etc.” conversation 50 times a night…”
7. Following MLB’s official statement to the Yankees and the rest of the league, the NFL issued a statement to Major League Baseball:
"Hey, you’re really stepping on our turf here. Burning a ton of calories on nothing while ignoring the important things is what we do. It’s our thing. We’re already having to fight off the NCAA to keep the title. We don’t have time to deal with you too. Shouldn’t you be focusing your efforts on keeping all your best players out of the HOF or making games slower? Cease and desist from faces in beer stuff.Regards, Roger"
8. I wish Jerry Jones was a baseball owner. He’d keep putting players’ faces in beers then take the league to court over all the fines, citing the fact that they can’t prove those faces are actually active players. He’d have a pretty good case too since you can’t tell who is who in three of the four beers shown above. It would be a fantastic use of our legal system to have a judge listen to those arguments though.
9. Several articles covering the story, including the one from Newsday, used phrases like “trouble brewing” and “party foul” to describe this situation with the Yankees. Pretty crafty use of beer-centric puns.
10. This part is such a sign of the times. And my god is it embarrassing to share a planet/society with this:
"A spokesman denied the company was involved in this incident. “Ripples is the company behind Beer Ripples, the device that can print any image, picture or message onto beer,’’ he said. “We are currently working with Legends, the company that runs the food and concessions stands at Yankee Stadium, who are in the process of testing a number of Beer Ripples machines. Ripples, however, was not involved with this particular activation.”"
Did they think they were being accused of fraud or some kind of workplace discrimination? This is like Dell issuing a public statement because someone made a typo with one of their laptops. I do love how the company spokesman worked “the device can print any image, picture or message” into the denial of involvement. It’s innocent of any wrongdoing AND it’s versatile.