Watch MLB announcers mock the people who pay their salary - MLB

During the Rockies-Dbacks game last night the broadcast cut back from a commercial and, as baseball broadcasts often do, the camera was focused on attractive young women in the stands. That the camera so often does that is a topic for another day, but let us just note that that was happening.

The women were all on their cell phones, taking selfies and such. Which was actually appropriate at the moment as the announcers were reading a T-Mobile promo asking fans to tweet photos of themselves at ballgames. That’s just synergy right there.

But then things got dumb. Watch the video of it here and listen to the broadcasters mock and complain about the women in the stands. And not just their acts. But their upbringing and all of that. Their disdain isn’t even remotely hidden. “Welcome to parenting in 2015!” Jokes about staging interventions. Comments like “I can’t even get MY phone to TAKE pictures,” as if that kind of ignorance is a good thing.

I have a daughter with a cell phone and I ain’t gonna lie: we don’t necessarily see eye-to-eye on technology’s highest and best use. But my folks think I’m addicted to my phone and the Internet and their folks thought they listened to too much rock and roll and their folks thought that the bobbysoxers were trouble and their folks thought that flappers would be the death of western civilization. Forty and 50-year-old men have been declaring that the younger generation is foolish since time began and this is no different. It says way more about the older generation than it says about the kids.

But that’s not my beef with this really. My beef is that a mobile company is, perhaps, Major League Baseball’s most visible sponsor. And that you can’t go an inning watching a baseball broadcast without the announcers telling you to text this or that to this or that company for a chance to win something, to download the official app of the whatever it is or, as here, to send your photos in for a chance to do something which, in reality, is to make MLB sponsors happy.

Put differently: people who are glued to their cell phones are paying an increasingly large part of these announcers’ salary. And the fact that they bought tickets and churros and everything else means they’re already putting a lot of money in baseball’s coffers.

Maybe don’t mock your customers so much?

NEW YORK – Minor league players reached a historic initial collective bargaining agreement with Major League Baseball on Wednesday that will more than double player salaries, a person familiar with the negotiations told The Associated Press.

The person spoke on condition of anonymity because details were not announced.

As part of the five-year deal, MLB agreed during the contract not to reduce minor league affiliates from the current 120.

The sides reached the deal two days before the start of the minor league season and hours after a federal judge gave final approval to a $185 million settlement reached with MLB last May of a lawsuit filed in 2014 alleging violations of federal minimum wage laws.

Union staff recommended approval and about 5,500 minor leaguers were expected to vote on Thursday. MLB teams must also vote to approve and are expected to do so over the next week.

Minimum salaries will rise from $4,800 to $19,800 at rookie ball, $11,000 to $26,200 at Low Class A, $11,000 to $27,300 at High Class A, $13,800 to $27,300 at Double A and $17,500 to $45,800 at Triple-A. Players will be paid in the offseason for the first time.

Most players will be guaranteed housing, and players at Double-A and Triple-A will be given a single room. Players below Double-A will have the option of exchanging club housing for a stipend. The domestic violence and drug policies will be covered by the union agreement. Players who sign for the first time at 19 or older can become minor league free agents after six seasons instead of seven.

Major leaguers have been covered by a labor contract since 1968 and the average salary has soared from $17,000 in 1967 to an average of $4.22 million last season. Full-season minor leaguers earned as little as $10,400 last year.

The Major League Baseball Players Association took over as the bargaining representative of the roughly 5,500 players with minor league contracts last September after a lightning 17-day organization drive.

Minor leaguers players will receive four weeks of retroactive spring training pay for this year. They will get $625 weekly for spring training and offseason training camp and $250 weekly for offseason workouts at home.

Beginning in 2024, teams can have a maximum of 165 players under contract during the season and 175 during the offseason, down from the current 190 and 180.

The union will take over group licensing rights for players.

Negotiating for players was led by Tony Clark, Bruce Meyer, Harry Marino, Ian Penny and Matt Nussbaum. MLB Deputy Commissioner Dan Halem headed management’s bargainers.