Lets see how our baseball friends are doing in their efforts to boycott Gatorade. Josh over at ThroughBall first alerted us to the ire of a few US baseball fans who felt it was insulting for Gatorade to use baseball’s anthem in their recent soccer commercials. In addition to asking fans to boycott Gatorade’s products, they started a petition.

This commercial is a direct assault on America’s Pastime and the baseball community needs to let it be known that such actions will not be tolerated by suspending the purchase of Gatorade products until a full apology is issued by the company.

The undersigned also feel that Major League Baseball (a national sponsor of Gatorade), the Professional Baseball Athletic Trainers Society (a Professional Affiliation of Gatorade), and currently sponsored MLB players Derek Jeter and Mark Prior should prevent any promotion of Gatorade by all of their entities until such an apology is issued.

Wow – you’d think the commercial said baseball was the cult of the devil or something.


I thought it was a great commercial, highlighting that there is a new ballgame in town and it’s not what most people expect. How it was disrespectful, I have no idea.

So how are they doing? They set a modest goal of 1000 signatures, which online should be easy to get. As of today, over a month since they first launched the petition, they have a grand total of … 34 signatures. That’s pretty much one signature per day. Maybe we’ll check back with them in 3 years or so.

If you’re still stinging from the US thrashing this afternoon, read some of the petition comments. There are some gems.

  • I support this petition because Baseball > soccer. Stop tainting America with all of this Euro-bullshit. Soccer is the "most popular game in the world" because the rest of the world sucks.
  • I support this petition because "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" is the anthem of our National Pastime. Just as I don’t want to hear the U.S. national anthem at a soccer game in Ireland, I don’t want to hear "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" in an ad that features soccer. The folks at Gatorade could not have been more disrespectful to our National Pastime had they had Roseanne Barr singing the song.
  • I support this petition because When you disrespect baseball, you disrespect America.
  • I support this petition because because soccer was invented by European women so they had something to do while their men did the cooking.
  • I support this petition because soccer is for uncoordinated 6 year olds who’s parents want them to grow up to be bigger pussies than themselves.
  • I support this petition because Stop taking what is best in America and watering it down for the hooligan masses. Come up with your own Damn song! Are you ready for some Football with a British accent may work. See how you like dealing with NFL fans. No Gatorade until you stop this needless abomination.

If I was a Gatorade marketing exec, I’d be quaking in my boots!