Can baseball help Bernie Sanders hit a 2020 home run?

Take Bernie out to ball game?

Bernie Sanders, Vermont senator and Democratic presidential candidate, is aggressively opposing a Major League Baseball plan to cut 42 mir league teams across country after 2020. Among targeted are Vermont Lake Monsters, Single-A affiliate of Oakland Athletics in his hometown, Burlington.

Defending low-profile ball clubs in far-flung places more fervently than anyone in crowded Democratic presidential field allows Sanders to potentially win over a largely untapped 2020 constituency: baseball fans.

Sanders planned to take batting practice indoors with mir league players Sunday in Burlington, Iowa. In August, he played softball with reporters on state’s corn field-ringed “Field of Dreams,” set of Hollywood hit of same name. And he has tapped a former Yale second baseman, Faiz Shakir, to run his campaign.

Taking diamond demonstrates physical stamina for a 78-year-old who recently h a heart attack, while also letting Sanders press a larger political point about rich owners putting profits ahe of national pastime. But it also shows off a softer side of someone most kwn to supporters and detractors alike for being a democratic socialist and backing progressive policy proposals such as “Medicare for All.”

“ guys who own teams are billionaires,″ Sanders said in an interview, ding that baseball ``is t an institution that is hurting financially. And you can see that by, just in last few weeks, seeing major league teams signing star baseball players for as much (as) $324 million.”

That refers to New York Yankees recently signing free-nt pitcher Gerrit Cole to a reported 9-year, $324 million contract.

MLB is negotiating a new agreement with National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues, governing body of mirs. initial contraction proposal primarily would impact lower-level teams in short-season leagues. Sanders met last month with Commissioner Rob Manfred to decry plan and senator sent him a letter Saturday, arguing that baseball “has to be considered more than just bottom line.”

“Baseball is t just ar business,” Sanders said. “re’s a reason president of United States throws out first pitch of season, why baseball is considered a national pastime.”

More than 100 members of Congress from both parties signed a separate letter to Manfred opposing shutting down mir league teams. But, so far, Sanders is alone among Democratic presidential hopefuls loudly opposing idea.

“He’s only one I hear talking about it,” said J.D. Scholten, who pitched professionally in Cana and for Iowa’s independent Sioux City Explorers. Scholten challenged longtime Republican Rep. Steve King in 2018 and is trying again to unseat him.

“I think it kind of fits into his overall mess of, right w, a lot of way our lives are being shaped by wealthy people who are dictating a lot of se things at top, and people at bottom are being left behind,” said Scholten, who also played basketball this past week with ar White House hopeful, businessman Andrew Yang.

Scholten said he tells crowds at town halls while campaigning that he’ll answer questions about anything, including baseball.

“My baseball background gets talked about quite a lot. I’m actually kind of surprised. I haven’t played in 10 years, was a paralegal for a dece and body talks about that,” Scholten joked.

Sanders’ baseball ties predate his 2020 campaign. He visited with Los Angeles Dodgers during spring training in 2018 and, as he was recovering at home following his Oct. 1 heart attack, Sanders’ campaign released video of candidate batting balls around his backyard.

senator grew up loving Brooklyn Dodgers until y moved to Los Angeles when he was 16. He w roots for Boston Red Sox, like a lot of New Englanders.

While running for first elected office he won, mayor of Burlington in 1981, Sanders says he thinks he remembers campaigning on landing a mir league team. He says “we worked extremely hard” to accomplish just that.- bringing a Cincinnati Reds affiliate to town three years later.

“Everybody found it amusing because name was Vermont Reds,” Sanders, an avowed democratic socialist even n, chuckled.

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