Oct. 7, 2021
Following the Los Angeles Dodgers’ walk-off win over the St. Louis Cardinals in the NL Wild Card Game Wednesday night, Major League Baseball’s social media team whipped up a picture graphic that had baseball fans collectively asking, “Why?”
The graphic shows the underside of a Dodgers player (Mookie Betts judging by the cleats and socks?) in the foreground while players from the other remaining teams look on in the background. The tweet was accompanied with the caption, “One step closer to repeating,” a line that was interpreted by some as a continuation of alleged Dodgers favoritism.
“There aren’t nearly enough comments about how f—ing weird this whole thing is,” a Twitter user commented on the photo.
“Why are we under him,” asked another user, speaking for all of us.
Other fans and media members noticed the very strange expressions of the players in the background as well as the shoddy superimposition work.
One fan even noticed that given the awning and lights, the graphic appears to be set at Wrigley Field, which is certainly a choice given that Chicago Cubs did not even sniff the postseason this year.
MLB’s Twitter account was previously pilloried for an early September tweet celebrating that, “For the first time since April 25, the Dodgers own the NL West,” accompanied by a graphic reading “1st place in NL West.”
When the San Francisco Giants took back the division lead four days later, San Francisco’s social media team made a graphic of their own subtly mocking MLB’s creation.
