Baseball's minor league player 'adoption agency' a lifeline during indefinite off-season

“Baseball is the belly-button of our society. Straighten out baseball, and you straighten out the world.” – Bill ‘Spaceman’ Lee

Michael Rivers never planned to become a belly-button repairman, let alone one of America’s foremost, writes Rachel Steinberg.

The married father of two, 39, was content in his full-time job waiting tables at Perkins Restaurant in Eagan, Minnesota.

But the baseball gods masterminded a different fate for the Twins fan. Tweet it, they whispered, and they will come.

Todd Van Steensel was the first. In January, the pitcher tweeted about conditions for players in Minor League Baseball, the tiered system below Major League Baseball (MLB).

Rivers said: “He talked about the horrors, what life was like, and that opened my eyes up.

“I asked him, can I send you a little bit of money? And I thought, you know what, that felt really good.”

So Rivers launched Adopt a Minor Leaguer (AML), a Twitter account matching fans with struggling players.

Minor leaguers are only paid during the season. As the coronavirus crisis hit, indefinitely delaying Opening Day, they faced the terrifying prospect of not knowing when they’d see their first paycheque.

Many applauded MLB’s recent decision to extend a $400 per week stipend, first announced in mid-March, through to May 31—but players’ long-term security remains precarious.

AML asks sponsors to send players about $150 monthly in cash, gift cards or care packages.

Pitcher Anthony Shew marvelled at the way it’s transformed fan-player relationships. Like many adoptees, he speaks to his sponsors, a family of Cardinals fans, more than once a week.

He said: “It hits you a little differently knowing there are fans out there who are so passionate about minor league baseball, who want to help have an impact on us as players and, in some small way, on the organ of the baseball organisation.”

“Baseball is the most perfect of games…if only life were so simple.” – from Shoeless Joe

It was navy veteran Scott Rivers, 66, who passed the Twins down to Michael like a family heirloom—one he inherited from his own father.

Scott was diagnosed with lung cancer in November. In January, he learned it had spread to his lymph nodes.

Last month, when coronavirus forced Perkins to close to diners, Michael focused on AML full-time.

He said: “It’s a silver lining because it’s giving me more time to help others.

“If I didn’t have this right now I’d be in a dark place. I’d have too much to time think about what’s going on. It would definitely hit me harder.”

Michael, whose wife Jessica is a nurse, was crestfallen to learn the risk of coronavirus contamination meant no one could be with his dad during cancer treatments.

He was deeply moved when the Twitter community he created to assist others turned their benevolence to Scott, flooding him with cards and gifts. Even the Twins sent a present.

Michael said: “It’s amazing. It makes me feel like maybe he doesn’t think he’s alone.”

AML now supports 365 adoptees. Perhaps a player-a-day fundraising calendar is in Michael’s future—he’s applying for charitable status.

Adopting a professional athlete, like one might an elephant, seems surreal, but advocates say the overwhelming response illuminates a long-term problem.

Former major leaguer Ty Kelly is a founding member of Advocates for Minor Leaguers (AFML), a new non-profit demanding systemic change.

He said: “In the minors, I slept on an air mattress in the middle of a living room one year with no furniture, no blinds, just the sun beating down on me every morning.

“This is not a unique story. There are guys skipping meals to try to save money, they’re rationing food.

“They don’t need to be living chicken finger to chicken finger.”

The Save America’s Pastime Act, passed by Congress in March 2018, exempted minor leaguers from certain overtime and labour laws.

It mandated players receive no less than weekly minimum wage during the season, calculated at 40 hours, no matter how much time they devoted to baseball—including unpaid, mandatory spring training.

AFML’s minor-leaguer-turned-attorney Garrett Broshuis represents players in an ongoing class-action lawsuit, filed in 2014, which claimed minor leaguers routinely worked over 50 hours per week and earned on average between $3000-$7500 yearly.

Players unable to supplement their income in the off-season, noted Kelly, risk falling below the US government’s $12,760 single-person poverty guideline.

Kelly said MLB’s reported plans to increase wages in 2021 are insufficient, which is why AFML is fighting for a $15,000 minimum salary.

Without more money, he warned: “Players will have to quit baseball. There’s no way around it. It’s really sad. You don’t know what these guys would have ended up becoming.”

Kelly refuses to let anyone fall through the cracks. And in the absence of a season, more and more people, from Major Leaguers to Minnesotans, have resolved the same.

So, as our upside-down world struggles to straighten itself out, their newly-connected community is beginning with the belly button.

Adopt a Minor Leaguer's Twitter account has been temporarily suspended due to an administrative error. You can still follow them on Instagram @adoptanmilbplayer.