Controversies: Suitgate

Who knew a simple shopping trip could turn into such a headache?

The sides: Jose Bautista (on behalf of Devon Travis) vs. the greedy people at Sporsnet

The background: As you may or may not recall, waaaay back in May, Sportsnet anchor Hazel Mae did a little fluff piece with Blue Jays rookie second baseman Devon Travis where they went suit shopping. Travis is only 24 and didn't really own a nice suit, which is basically a requirement for professional athletes - they have to dress nice when travelling and attending events and such. It was cute, it was fun, Devo looked dapper, all was fine, and after the season the Jays have had, nobody really remembered it after a while. You can watch the clip here:

The issue: Well as it turns out, the folks at Sportsnet (and its parent company, Rogers, who - surprise surprise - own the Blue Jays) made Devo pay for his own suit. 

The backlash: Jose Bautista didn't agree with this decision, and decided that he wouldn't do any one-on-one interviews with Sportsnet journalists until the matter was resolved. Weirdly enough, the reason for the boycott didn't surface until three months later - and in the meantime, apparently nobody in the general public noticed that SN was bereft of Joey Bats interviews. Many fans, tweeters and reporters alike, sided with Bautista, calling Sportsnet 'cheap' and praising Jose for standing up for his young teammate. 

My two cents: When I first heard about this story, the whole issue seemed kind of surprising and weird to me. Since Sportsnet is the ones who are in charge of the segment, aren't they supposed to pay? Isn't that supposed to be how this kind of thing goes? The store is getting tons of free publicity from this segment, why don't they cover the cost? I'm not saying he's being *forced* to go shopping and there are definitely less pleasant ways to spend one's time and money, but that still seems odd. 

People have mentioned that Travis is a well-paid ballplayer, but I think his salary is irrelevant here. Being a girl, I also have no clue how much men's suits/shirts/ties/shoes cost, but designer clothing can run pretty expensive. Someone pointed out that since it was 'off the rack' and not custom-made by a tailor, it would have been cheaper, but that's still a relative term. Also you can't tell me Devo's suit didn't require some alterations. He's short and extremely muscular - especially in the, erm, thigh area - I'm pretty sure that's not a standard size. 

Rogers/Sportsnet makes money off of him regardless, would it kill them to pony up for a suit, especially one he wears while representing their organization? They're taking advantage of him by proposing the shopping segment and then making him pay for it, when he could have just as easily done the same thing off-camera on his own time or with a friend. Everyone profits from this except Devo, and that's not right. 

As for the Bautista angle, I'm not even sure how he became involved in this. Maybe Devo was kind of disgruntled about having to pay so much money? He might not have even complained at all, could be Bautista just heard about how the transaction occurred and thought 'that's not right, he's being taken advantage of.' We'll probably never know. But I love the way he handled it. Travis is a young kid, he can't really complain without raising some eyebrows about his attitude. Bautista knows that. He carries some clout with Sportsnet since he's one of the biggest stars on the team, so if anyone could make them do the right thing, it would be him. If anyone says this man isn't a leader, I'll fight them. He saw something that he felt was wrong, so he used his influence to help make it right. 

He didn't make a big fuss about it, either, just played the stubbornly silent waiting game until the other side caved (which I'm assuming they did, given that he did an unrelated on-air interview with Barry Davis the same day the story broke). It was probably the public criticism that did Sportsnet in. I love the fact that Bautista didn't comment on the story when asked (by other media members) about it, other than to confirm that they had their facts straight. Because ain't nobody writing inaccurate headlines about Joey Bats. 

The winners: Well, eventually it got resolved, so I'm assuming Bautista and Travis won in the end. Travis gets a free suit and still looks like the humble human being he is. 

Bautista also wins because he comes across looking like a hero (something not undeserved). In a third win, Bautista got three months free of answering the same bloody questions over and over again. Lucky him. 

The store/designer still get paid for the suit either way, and I'm sure they got extra business somewhere along the line because of this segment, so as annoyed as it makes me, I guess they win too. Stupid capitalism. 

The losers: Rogers and Sportsnet had one of their star athletes be mad at them for three months, so that can't be fun. They also were on the receiving end of ire from more fans (aside from the ones that already hate them for renaming the beloved Dome and building a statue of Ted Rogers... Seriously.) I'm not including paying for a ~1000$ suit as a loss for a billion-dollar company. But the bad PR is punishment enough. 

Us viewers lost out on three months' worth of Joey Bats quotes. Sad face. However, that would have been a bigger deal if the team wasn't doing so well. And call me a sap, but I kind of liked seeing the 'bit players' get some more screen time instead. 

How it should have gone down: In a perfect world, the network would have not been cheap bastards and paid for the damn suit themselves, and in return for all the publicity, the store would have given them a discount. The store then gets to proclaim "Hey! Toronto Blue Jay Devon Travis shops here!", which is probably what happened anyways. 

The ironic thing about all of this is that Devo is so sweet and gracious that he probably would have spent an hour of airtime profusely thanking whoever paid for the clothes. That makes good TV, and the network gets footage of that which they can use whenever they feel like for the rest of his life. And we the viewers get to see that footage. Everybody wins.

I mean hell, I'd buy Devo a suit if it meant I could hang out with him for a day. Tuition is overrated.

Unanswered questions: Was the issue actually resolved? Bautista gave an on-air interview the day of the story, so that's kind of a quick turnaround, but it may have been some kind of goodwill gesture on behalf of the network to make it seem like everything was fine. Maybe they made an agreement not to bring it up. I know Barry Davis, a Sportsnet employee, definitely wasn't going to. 

Didn't I read something about Mark Buehrle taking the rookies every year to get their first suit? What happened to that? Maybe he only does it with the pitching staff. But that's some serious leadership too - and he doesn't do it for publicity, either. 

Also, remember that time Edwin Encarnacion blew off Barry Davis after hitting a walk-off home run? Everyone says it's because he's self-conscious about his English, but I'd like to think it's because he was showing solidarity with Bautista over the suit thing. I can dream, right? 

@BlueJayHunter a nice addition might be Edwin denying Barry pic.twitter.com/XHWq1XvBrS

— Seb FoxAllen (@purpledocket) June 10, 2015

If there's one thing about this we can all agree on, it's that Devo is adorable. And he looks damn good in blue.

And a HOUNDSTOOTH tie?!! Excuse me, I accidentally drew blood because of how sharp this is. That offer of shopping still stands, anytime.