Rob Neyer has noted on several occasions that baseball is penny wise and pound foolish, usually as it relates to paying and generally looking after minor leaguers. A big part of that is nutrition, which we hear about once a year or so when minor league meal allowances are reported. It’s not much money and the food it buys is pretty pathetic. Basically, any nutrition plan that all but explicitly calls for regular runs for the border is suspect.
There’s an interesting report from Zach Levine in the Houston Chronicle today about the consequences of such a lazy approach to feeding the prospects. The upshot: They lose weight and with it power as the season progresses.
Not that this is all baseball’s fault. I mean, we are dealing with boys between the ages of 18 and 22 and if there’s a demographic that makes poorer choices than boys that age I have yet to encounter it. Christ, even my son will eat an apple once in a while. You pull a bus full of broke minor leaguers into a Krystal’s parking lot and you got yourself a full-fledged natural disaster on your hands.
I realize that on any minor league team there are, like, four guys the organization really cares about with the rest constituting roster filler, but you’d think that baseball teams would want to pay closer attention to this stuff and make sure their investments aren’t eating chalupas and chili fries all the time.
