Changing Baseball, One Snack at a Time
With each team required to have a dietitian on staff, the days of pizza, hot dogs and nachos are largely over.
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By Adam Elder
Oct. 8, 2022
Updated 9:33 a.m. ET
Throughout baseball’s long history, fans at games have typically drunk beer while snacking on peanuts and hot dogs. Behind the scenes, things weren’t much different. The game’s athletes were often fueled by pizza, hot dogs and nachos in the clubhouse, and all-you-can-chew quantities of bubble gum and sunflower seeds in the dugout.
But as the game has become increasingly scientific, so has the baseball diet. Spare a thought for the Philadelphia Phillies’ old nacho cheese pump, as they and several other teams got rid of that crowd pleaser. Of course, some traditions are harder to abandon: The Atlanta Braves got rid of their soft-serve ice cream machine, which was a good-luck charm of sorts during their run to last year’s World Series title. But a new machine was recently installed in the clubhouse by popular demand.
After the 162-game grind of the regular season ended Wednesday, Major League Baseball dived right into its postseason, which started Friday and will extend into November. To help players get through such a long season, many teams have replaced pregame junk food with macronutrient-rich meals; dugout candy with fruit, jerky, Kind bars, Honey Stinger waffles or sugar-free gum; and water and Gatorade coolers with bespoke hydration drinks tailored to each player’s sodium sweat loss.
“Junk food and corn syrup do not provide quality nutrients for adequate recovery,” explained Alexa Scully, the Phillies’ dietitian, who oversees a dugout menu of almonds, dried mango, beef jerky, string cheese and peanut butter pretzels. “When carbs are mixed with a little bit of fat, fiber or protein, this helps keep blood glucose from spiking and provides sustainable energy over a longer period of time.”
Scully isn’t alone in this.
“Everything in our clubhouse is geared toward helping promote recovery and reduce inflammation,” said Drew Weisberg, the Yankees’ dietitian. “We try to stick to snacks and foods with good nutrition.”
Until recently, none of this was in the baseball vernacular. The stories of Babe Ruth asking fans for hot dogs between doubleheaders were probably apocryphal — though for much of the sport’s history, there wasn’t anything at all in dugouts besides chewing tobacco. Not even water.
According to Jacob Pomrenke, editorial director at the Society for American Baseball Research, Philip Wrigley, the longtime owner of the Chicago Cubs, used to supply his players with his company’s chewing gum, but this wasn’t widespread. And because clubhouses were often far from the field at old ballparks, players didn’t bring much into the dugout.
It was still considered unusual in the 1960s when Ron Santo of the Cubs, a diabetic, brought a candy bar and orange juice into the dugout. Gradually, in-game eating and drinking caught on. By the 1980s, it was common to see candy wrappers and empty Gatorade cups strewn across dugout floors in the aftermath of a game. David sunflower seeds were once supplied free to teams, and Pomrenke said M.L.B. had gum deals with Dubble Bubble and Bazooka until a few years ago.
Baseball’s leaguewide turn toward health accelerated in 2017. The collective bargaining agreement reached in the previous winter between the league and the players’ union required, for the first time, that teams hire full-time chefs and dietitians. The clubs use their experts differently, and while some have taken a strict approach, others have done it gradually. It’s not easy to change a player’s game day eating routines, which were often formed in college cafeterias or while schlepping around the minor leagues on tiny salaries.
“It takes a long time to create a new habit,” said Kara Lynch, the Minnesota Twins’ dietitian. “A player may prefer Goldfish instead of kale salad. It’s about pairing the Goldfish with a little bit of color rather than saying, ‘You can only have kale salad.’ Or if a player wants to have Teddy Grahams and Lindt chocolates, I won’t say no. You can make those foods work.”
“If we don’t have brownies or cookies, they’re going to get it on their own,” she added. “We also have to keep the coaches happy.”
Yankees pitcher Luis Severino used to regularly indulge in fried chicken — and most anything fried, he said. He also could not bring himself to eat anything for many hours before a start. But injuries and a desire to pitch deeper into games led Severino to work closer with Weisberg. These days, Severino eats a chicken salad early in the day; a peanut butter and almond-milk shake several hours before his start; and a banana or Honey Stinger chews between innings in the dugout.
“Before I started working with Drew, I’d be out of energy after the fourth inning,” Severino said. “After this, I feel great. My body recovers faster after a long inning.”
Severino isn’t the only one on the team who eats well. He noted that Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton, Anthony Rizzo and others are mindful of what’s best for their body.
One common trick that Weisberg and other teams’ nutrition experts employ is to place healthy snacks in the same strategic, high-traffic locations in dugouts and clubhouses every time, both at home and on the road. This makes it easier for players to eat what’s good for them than to seek out junk.
But even as baseball catches up with other sports, it has a knack for staying rooted in the past. Tobacco use persists even after the league banned it in 2016. Tubs of Dubble Bubble are still a staple in dugouts, though the sugar-free version is often nearby. Seeds too: In the aftermath of a bench-clearing brawl between the Angels and Mariners on June 25, pitcher Raisel Iglesias reached for the nearest thing to throw toward the opponents’ dugout in anger — a bucket of sunflower seeds.
“Sunflower seeds and gum is the universal language of baseball,” Weisberg said. “For all the countries represented on our team, you’ll have guys from everywhere chewing gum or eating seeds every game.”
Team experts agree that these items will probably always be around. That’s OK with them.
“If we have sugar out on the field, it’s a quick source of energy,” Lynch of the Twins said. “It limits how much muscle they’re breaking down. Some of what we term ‘old traditions,’ we can actually look at the positive properties of it.”
Weisberg said: “I wouldn’t even call gum and seeds junk food. It’s a rhythm-type thing that helps carry them through the game.”
Baseball’s season is such a grind, dietitians say, that bad diets will catch up to players eventually. But once they experience the performance benefits of a good diet, and see the potential to lengthen their career, they become more open to the acquired tastes of healthier food.
Still, some players simply don’t care to eat healthily. Others fall back on old habits. When a player is in a slump, he will sometimes seek that tobacco or junk food that he has found comfort (or superstition) in before.
Inevitably, if star athletes want something, they will find a way to get it without too much effort. For the team nutritionists and dietitians, the important thing is building relationships, sometimes one vegetable at a time.
“Some guys will say no to making any changes to their diet, and that’s OK,” Scully of the Phillies said. “For those guys, it’s important to make sure they know you support them and are there if they decide to change their mind. Sometimes the guys who you think will never come around actually do, and it’s always a cool thing to be a part of.”
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