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Thursday, March 28, 2024

Why are the Yankees throwing gum on the field during games? Explaining ‘the bubble gum game’ New York is playing

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The Yankees have been the best team in baseball during the 2022 MLB season, but evidently, their 55 wins aren’t enough to keep all of their players focused on the game.

Instead, New York’s dugout has found another way of entertaining themselves during each contest. As a result, the field has been littered with gum during each of the team’s last couple of contests.

Both the Yankees and Athletics broadcasts have recognized over the last couple of days that New York’s dugout has been chucking gum onto the field during the game. Why is that? They are playing something known simply as “the bubble gum game.”

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Fittingly, the game is a simple one. Yankees analyst Cameron Maybin explained the “gross” ritual during New York’s broadcast and likened it to playing another sport.

“It’s like golf,” Maybin said. “It’s like frisbee golf. They find a little marker on the field and they toss the gum and they act as if they’re playing frisbee golf.”

So, the goal is to get the gum as close to the target as possible. In this case, it appears that New York is aiming at a little drain cover or sprinkler head that is in foul territory by the dugout.

Certainly, this practice will skeeve some people out. After all, the gum they are tossing has been chewed, right? Not necessarily.

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Though Maybin speculated that the pieces had been chewed before they were thrown onto the field on Tuesday, the broadcast showed that the Yankees weren’t chewing the gum before throwing it on Wednesday. Instead, they were rolling it with their hands to get it in tossing condition.

Picking up that gum must still be a pain for the New York groundskeepers, as Michael Kay noted on the broadcast. But at least it hasn’t been chewed.

It’s unclear exactly when or how the Yankees’ game within the game began and whether it will become a season-long endeavor. Surely some players will be asked about the enthralling dugout competition soon.

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