Major League Baseball has a lot of issues to deal with, but commissioner Rob Manfred wants kids to stop saying “The MLB.”
The MLB commissioner has an issue with kids these days.
They’re referring to the league all wrong by saying “The MLB.”
“It’s the weirdest (naughty word) thing, It’s just ‘Major League Baseball’,” Manfred said per Jimmy Golen of the AP.
Let’s be fair. Manfred didn’t bring this up unprompted. Golen asked the commissioner about “an issue that has been bothering me” before the wildcard matchup between the Dodgers and Cardinals.
Still, it’s also the weirdest (naughty word) thing to even get bothered over.
Rob Manfred wants you to say Major League Baseball, not the MLB
Yes, MLB stands for Major League Baseball. Once it’s an acronym, it becomes its own thing. Just because you wouldn’t say “The Major League Baseball” doesn’t mean you can’t say “The MLB.”
Need an example? Major League Baseball may enact a rule, but the MLB can represent a collective that includes the league office, teams, players and entire organizations.
I’ve caught myself doing it when I’m differentiating between the sport as a whole (use “Major League Baseball has a domestic abuse problem”) vs when I’m referring to yet another ridiculous thing Manfred is doing “if the MLB doesn’t ban Bauer from baseball it’ll be hard to watch.” https://t.co/hpdvmkrjfM
— Amanda Smith (@AmandaSmithSays) October 6, 2021
It also sometimes sounds better to use “the” in the same way you’d day “The NFL” or “The NBA.” When people talk, most aren’t pondering deeper grammatical debates.
It’s probably way more important that 20-somethings are even talking about the league. It doesn’t really matter whether they put an article in front of it so long as they’re engaged.
Manfred likely hasn’t put any more thought into it than that one reaction to a question. So his response to a silly question isn’t worth getting wound up over either.
It’s just funny what kinds of things can grind people’s gears.