Questions Come When Uniforms Are Selling Point

Corporate sponsorship and baseball tradition have collided in, of all places, an obscure second-year independent baseball league with two local franchises.

The Golden Baseball League has sold advertising space on its jerseys, uncharted territory for most pro sports leagues and a move that borders on sacrilege according to baseball purists.

Players and coaches from each of the league’s six teams are wearing an AlphaFlex patch on a sleeve of their uniforms according to terms of a two-year, $380,000 deal the league reached with Sierra Life Sciences, a Reno-based maker of dietary supplements.

It’s the first time an American baseball league has sold advertising space on its uniforms since 1992, when the Salt Lake City Trappers wore patches for Hardee’s and Coca-Cola.

Although professional ballclubs are not immune to corporate sponsorship -- walls of major league and minor league stadiums are routinely peppered with advertising; and in the minor leagues, wacky mid-inning promotions and pregame giveaways are not only commonplace but expected by fans -- uniforms have mostly been kept off limits except for at the lowest levels of the game.

“It’s probably not a sin, though it is a slippery slope,” said John Thorn, a baseball historian and editor of the Total Baseball encyclopedia. “There’s a mystical resonance in this issue. There is a magic circle in which you play. You don’t violate that circle. The walls are regarded as the perimeter, and you can’t go further. But the infield is clearly the religious demarcation.”

For the low-budget Golden Baseball League, which has teams in Fullerton; Long Beach; San Diego; Chico, Calif.; Yuma, Ariz.; and Reno, the deal means a greater chance of survival. About $228,000 will be paid in cash, with the rest delivered in free AlphaFlex, a muscle and joint supplement, said Gary Lord, co-founder of Sierra Life Sciences.

“Baseball is the American pastime,” said David Kaval, the chief executive and co-founder of the Golden Baseball League. “I don’t think a patch for a health product takes away the joy and excitement of what happens on the field and in the stands.”

Advertising most recently clashed with baseball tradition in 2004, when, after public outcry, Major League Baseball halted a proposal to use a Spider-Man logo on first, second and third bases to advertise an upcoming movie. But the idea can be traced to 1939, when New York baseball teams wore patches promoting the World’s Fair, Thorn said.

Uniform advertising is no longer allowed in the major leagues or even by their affiliated minor league teams. However, uniforms are about all that is sacred in the minors, where the Hagerstown (Md.) Suns once gave away a prepaid funeral.

The Golden Baseball League doesn’t have MLB connections. Its players are free agents, its teams mostly made up of players released by major league organizations or non-drafted former college players trying to get noticed.

Kaval said the league’s uniform deal started to take shape after a trip he took to the Caribbean World Series, where sponsors -- not the names of players -- adorned the backs of jerseys. He said there was little debate that the patch would tarnish the game. Kaval said he would love to sell advertising on both sleeves -- one now features a Golden Baseball League patch -- and possibly near the number on the back of the jersey.

“We want to keep it professional,” said Jared Florin, general manager of the Long Beach Armada. “We don’t want to make these guys look like stock cars. That’s something we won’t do.”

The league, however, will entertain team sponsorships, Kaval said. (Imagine Team Googles versus Team Yahoos.)

“It doesn’t compromise the whole baseball tradition at all,” said Garry Templeton, the manager of the Fullerton Flyers. “It’s just something new. Half of the players don’t even notice that patch is on their shoulder.”