The MLB draft hasn’t historically been as significant an event as the NFL and NBA events. After all, baseball players need much longer to develop than football and basketball players, so the guys selected in the draft are usually years away from making a big league roster—if they do at all. But fans in Seattle made the first round of this year’s MLB draft as lively as any other draft.
They booed commissioner Rob Manfred into oblivion at the start of the draft. They voiced support for the A’s to stay in Oakland. They booed Manfred again. Then, they briefly stopped booing Manfred, only to erupt in one of their loudest choruses of boos all night long.
The target? The hated Astros.
When Manfred announced that Houston was on the clock to end the first round, Seattle fans really let the boo birds fly.
As much as the fans in Seattle hate Rob Manfred, they hate the Houston Astros even more. pic.twitter.com/5F5wcvSliq
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) July 10, 2023
The Astros’ pick was a perfect storm of hate. Nearly four years after their sign stealing scheme was exposed to the public, the Astros remain the most hated team in baseball. They’re also division rivals of the Mariners, so the fans in Seattle had at least two reasons to drown out any mention of Houston with boos.
When Manfred came out to announce the Astros’ pick, the boos were even louder. The commissioner even had to pause several times in an unsuccessful attempt to let the boos die down.
Rob Manfred can barely get words out pic.twitter.com/DturFI8c4E
— Baseball GIFs (@gifs_baseball) July 10, 2023
The funniest part, though, was when Manfred announced that the first round had concluded and that the next group of picks would be announced by MLB’s senior vice president of on field operations, Raúl Ibañez. The boos immediately changed to loud cheers at the mention of the former Mariner’s name.
