The Marlins changed their logo.
It turns out this happened in November, but I learned of it yesterday, because evidently I’ve been scrolling past their scores in the MLB At Bat App™ without looking at them all season.
That isn’t to fault the MLB At Bat App™. Out of everything the MLB does, the At Bat App™ is one of the few things done well, even if its push notifications contain a painful quantity of emojis and seem written by a 45-year-old desperate to connect with the young folk.
No, I’m not mad at the MLB over me not knowing the Marlins changed their logo (I kind of like it, but I also kind of liked the Marlins having a logo and color scheme as unusual as they are, and to be frank I’m a bit offended because this whole thing distracted me from being mad at them for getting rid of that sculpture or fountain or whatever it was, all of which makes me realize the Marlins are erasing that chapter of their history in George Orwell’s 1984 but for sports, and good lord that’s horrifying how are we letting those monsters do this?).
I’m mad at the other sports apps out there. Specifically, the ESPN App and the YAHOO SPORTS APP.
Yes, these were the apps on my phone in November (I’ve been waffling between them for months due to crashes/inadequate gamecasts, and let me tell you, it is a rush—I even switch their locations on my phone depending which one I’m less mad at, which feels very empowering as a consumer), and neither made sure I knew about the logo change. And for that, I am displeased.
YAHOO SPORTS APP, I’ll tolerate you doing things that annoy me, like putting the wide-eyes-looking-to-the-side emoji on push notifications about NFL players unfollowing each other on Instagram. I’ll tolerate you doing things that don’t make sense, like telling me to follow Mike Fiers’ no-hitter in your mediocre game tracker when I live in the 21st century and therefore have hundreds of ways to experience the performance more personally. I’ll even tolerate you doing things that make me uncomfortable, like putting a black heart emoji on your notification (there are so many freaking push notifications) about the Nuggets’ coach’s comments on the latest school shooting.
And ESPN, if you want to keep sending me a push notification every time Stephen A. Smith and Max Kellerman have a minor disagreement, go for it.
But when you both fail to inform me that the Marlins have a new logo, I draw the line. It’s one thing to tell me about things I don’t care about, or tactlessly handle events peripheral to real-life tragedies. But it’s another entirely to fail to tell me about the things I want to know, like what a bunch of guys whose names I don’t know are wearing the seven nights of the year I care to check what they’re up to.
For those of you wondering what I will be doing to change this, this post is about it. Although I did turn off a bunch of ESPN notifications the other day because the app was eating data and I didn’t know why, and I did turn off some YAHOO SPORTS APP notifications today because I wanted to make them feel the consequences of their actions. But yeah, mostly just this post. Just using my massive Twitter following and generally hefty sphere of influence to inflict painful retribution on the people whose technology I use to check schedules and scores (YAHOO SPORTS APP is better on schedules, ESPN’s better on scores, YAHOO SPORTS APP inexplicably let me watch some of the NFL Playoffs on my phone, which was nice when I was bored on the toilet a couple times in January).
Also, to be clear, I don’t really care about uniforms too much. Was never a big Uni Watch guy. Just felt I’d been had by the sports media industry because I didn’t know about the Marlins shifting. What if my buddy in Miami unexpectedly had a child and I wanted to buy that child a Brian Anderson jersey? I could’ve looked downright foolish!
Alright, rambling. I’ll wrap it up. If someone wants to make an app that sends me a notification only when the Marlins have a significant shift in their branding (which I believe we’re now due for in 2022, when they become the Miami-Dade County Marlins and make their logo a fish speared on a massive plastic straw with a speech bubble coming out of its mouth saying ‘¡Olé!’ and an italicized script beneath the whole thing saying presented by Sir David Jeter™), I will download that app.
But I won’t pay for it.
