Lack of competition in baseball rubbing mud.
Posted: October 24, 2011 Filed under: baseball 2 CommentsMaybe everybody else already knew this, but I didn’t: every baseball in the big leagues gets rubbed with mud.
And not just any mud! It’s mud harvested from a particular spot, on a Delaware River tributary. It’s provided to MLB by a company called Lena Blackburne Baseball Rubbing Mud.
Some quick Googling revealed that NPR also did a story on this back in 2009, where they reported that a 32-ounce container of rubbing mud cost $58 and would last a team for a season.
I bet you’re thinking what I’m thinking: why does America’s favorite pastime tolerate such an egregious monopoly? Don’t you think a little competition in the rubbing mud industry could result in lower prices? And what about Japan – where do they get their professional baseball rubbing mud from?
sylviachi 
Seriously? Isn’t there a more important thing to whine about? Put your energy into curring cancer.
$58 a year? No accounting system can even find that number on the budget of a MLB team!! C’mon man! 32 teams times $58 is less than $2k/yr…cannot be correct since the guy sells 900 lbs of the stuff a year, and there are not that many minor league teams….assuming the 900 lbs at $29 per pound, this so called monopolist is grossing $26,100 per year. Call the Anti-Trust Division of DOJ stat!!!