Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., on Monday called on Major League Baseball Commissioner Robert Manfred Jr. not to scuttle 42 minor league clubs because it would "do irreparable harm to the game's relationship with millions of Americans."
"Shutting down 25 percent of minor League baseball teams, would be an absolute disaster for baseball fans, workers and communities throughout the country," Sanders told Manfred in a letter posted on Twitter.
"Not only would your extreme proposal destroy thousands of jobs and devastate local economies, it would be terrible for baseball."
More than 100 members of Congress have opposed Manfred's plan to cut the major league affiliations of 42 teams in the lower levels of the minors next year.
The commissioner says the reorganization would make the minor leagues more efficient, The New York Times reports, and would improve conditions and ballparks.
But Sanders argued that more than 41 million people saw minor league games last year — and accused MLB of hitting back after a federal judge in August allowed a class-action lawsuit brought by minor league players seeking improved wages to proceed.
The case was initially filed in 2014 by 45 former minor players.
"Your proposal has nothing to do with what is good for baseball, but it has everything to do with greed," Sanders said.
"Instead of paying minor league baseball players a living wage, it appears that the multi-millionaire and billionaire owners of would rather throw them out on the street no matter how many fans, communities and workers get hurt in the process."
Sanders said that, as such, Congress and the White House should "seriously" reconsider "all of the benefits it has bestowed to the league including, but not limited to, its antitrust exemption."
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