Baseball is trying to cut out the junk food

Don’t freak out -- you’ll still be able to get your Luther Burger at Gateway Grizzlies games -- this is about the players eating better:

At baseball’s just-concluded winter meetings in Indianapolis, major and minor league strength and conditioning coaches devoted 12 hours on Saturday--about half of their total meeting time--to discussing matters such as including edamame and snow peas in the postgame buffet to whether teams should order “fun size” candy bars rather than the odious regular-sized variety.

“There’s nothing wrong with a Reese’s peanut butter cup every now and then,” says Perry Castellano, the Minnesota Twins’ strength and conditioning coordinator. “The issue is when somebody eats eight at a time.”

The article says that the trainers are trying to do things like introduce edamame to the post-game buffet and that the Phillies and Rays are experimenting with the idea of giving players foods rich in antioxidant grains like “quinoa,” “teff” and “spelt,” whatever the hell that is. This is dangerous territory, though: Ask yourself: if you’re a free agent, and team A is offering you $25 million and burgers and team B is offering you $25 million and “spelt,” who are you signing with?

Seriously though, it has always amazed me that big time professional athletes are basically given boxes of free candy bars and cookies and burgers and stuff right inside the locker room before and after games like baseball players are. No, there aren’t a ton of really out-of-shape ballplayers, but there isn’t a team that doesn’t have at least one guy who ate his way out of being a productive player in recent years. Why make it easier for them by having garbage around?

So I agree with the article: teams should totally go the healthy route by replacing big candy bars with “fun size” candy bars and burgers with White Castle sliders. You know, for the good of the players.