Trevor Bauer Calls Out the MLB After They Threatened Him for His “Free Joe Kelly” Cleats

Prior to Cincinnati Reds pitcher Trevor Bauer's start on Wednesday night, the second game of a doubleheader against the Royals in Kansas City, he dropped a video saying that he was going to be wearing custom "Free Joe Kelly" cleats.

And the moment you've all been waiting for.....here's a look at my cleats for tonight's start. FREE JOE KELLY! If you want to be eligible for a chance to win these, see next tweet for details. pic.twitter.com/WR0LrNpgCC

— Trevor Bauer (@BauerOutage) August 19, 2020

When Bauer took the mound however, he wasn't wearing the cleats.  That's because Major League Baseball stepped in and threatened to eject, suspend and fine him.

Bauer went out and pitched a complete game (7 innings) shutout, giving up just one hit while striking out 9.  After the game he explained why he wasn't wearing his "Free Joe Kelly" cleats and blasted the MLB and Rob Manfred.

For everyone wondering why I didn’t wear the cleats tonight, @MLB threatened to eject me and suspend me and levy unprecedented fines against me if I did. I couldn’t put my teammates at risk like that. Earlier this year, MLB said players could put whatever they wanted on their

— Trevor Bauer (@BauerOutage) August 20, 2020

cleats, so long as it wasn’t political or offensive. Apparently, Rob is not a fan of players following his rules, as “Free Joe Kelly” is not political and is very clearly said in jest. Just leaves me over here wondering how following the rules = ejection/suspension/fine and

— Trevor Bauer (@BauerOutage) August 20, 2020

cheating your way to a World Series = no ejection/suspension/fine...y’all really know how to pick your battles...🙄 learned my lesson though. Fun is bad, cheating is good. Won’t make the same mistake twice, can promise you that 👊🏻👊🏻 pic.twitter.com/Tyh0JdjJZv

— Trevor Bauer (@BauerOutage) August 20, 2020

Bauer is making a lot of sense here.  It's almost as if the MLB is encouraging players to cheat.

This is all the result of Manfred being too much of a bitch to suspend the Astros players for cheating.  He would much rather take care of the bigger issues in the game like custom cleats.