A week or so ago, the Chicago Cubs had a bit of a disaster. Four and a half innings into the game it started raining — hard — but they didn’t have enough grounds crew to cover the field with tarps quickly enough. The attempt to cover the field was so pitiful the audience booed. Finally, after a long delay and with the field an unplayable mess, the game was called because of rain. Which gave a 2-0 win to the Cubs.
Their opponents, the SF Giants, protested the call and won. It was the first successful protest in major league baseball in 28 years. So the game was resumed two days later.
Now here’s the ironic part. It turns out that the Cubs had sent home ten workers from the grounds crew earlier that evening. Why did they do that? Because if those employees had worked more hours then the Cubs would have had to provide health insurance under Obamacare.
The Cubs claim that they were just trying to control costs, which is pretty funny considering that they are one of the top five baseball teams in revenues. An official with another team put it bluntly — he called them “cheap”. “Embarrassing” said another official, “and they got caught”.
2 Comments
I LOVE baseball. That being said, this is the kind of thing that reminds me that professional sports is simply big business hiding behind the incredible athletes that play the game and that those athletes are so grossly overpaid for playing a game. Couldn’t afford to allow staff to qualify for health insurance? You have got to be kidding me. Maybe they should just raise hot dog prices another couple of bucks.
That requirement of Obamacare was delayed until 2015.