Ordinarily, this newsletter is devoted to government policies and politics as they affect Iowa.

However, as regular readers know, I love the game of baseball. And, on occasion, baseball references will make their way into my writing.

This is one such occasion.

If you’ve come here for Iowa politics, however, please don’t turn away. I believe there is a political component to this story. And, later in this column, I will tell you about how, on a different topic, top Iowa Republicans are turning on one of their own. But first, baseball.

A few days ago, The Athletic reported Major League Baseball is coming back to Iowa next season.

After a four-year absence, there will be a Major League game at the Field of Dreams in Dyersville, the site of the 1989 movie of the same name. The game will be between the Minnesota Twins and Philadelphia Phillies.

This will be an occasion for MLB to bask in the romanticism that stems from the movie starring Kevin Costner and James Earl Jones. Iowa’s tourism industry will benefit from the attention, too.

However, I think of this as more an occasion to point out how much MLB disrespects its fans living in Iowa, even as it seeks to leverage the nostalgia of the Field of Dreams. And I hope to the extent the state’s politicians celebrate this game next year, they’ll also remember the fans who are being mistreated.

Mostly, I’m talking about MLB.TV’s blackout rules. (I almost used the words “draconian blackout rules,” but as any baseball fan living in Iowa knows, it is unnecessary to apply the adjective.) In my area, six teams are not available to me, including those hundreds of miles away. It’s not at all unusual that, on any given day, 25-30% of the games on MLB.TV are blacked out. This even though no Major League team resides in Iowa.

I’m a Baltimore Orioles fan, so the remarkable run by the Milwaukee Brewers this year isn’t nearly as interesting to me as the implosion of my team, which pre-season prognosticators said would compete for the playoffs. Had I been interested, however, in watching the Brewers, I would be out of luck. Brewers’ games are blacked out, even though I have practically zero chance of seeing them otherwise. Even though I paid $150 for a yearlong subscription.

I realize that a lot of baseball fans across the country complain about blackout rules.

I also realize my complaints about MLB aren’t as articulate as those of other writers. For this, I recommend you read Joe Queenan’s recent column in the Wall Street Journal, where he contemplates the dispute between the Major League team owners and players over a possible salary cap—and suggests that neither side deserves our sympathy.

He concludes by saying, “whoever ultimately wins this battle, the fans are going to get screwed. As usual.”

Which is kind of the way I feel about the Field of Dreams game. MLB will benefit from the nostalgia for the game next year, and Iowa tourism will get a bump. Which is a good thing. Our economy definitely needs whatever boost it can get given the way things have been going.

However, if nothing changes, Iowa baseball fans who want to watch Major League teams will be left paying a hefty sum for the privilege of draconian (there, I said it) blackout rules that will leave them fuming.

It’s almost enough to make you want to walk into a cornfield, never to return.

Disrespecting Brenna Bird

The message couldn’t be clearer: Some of Iowa’s top Republicans have lost confidence in Brenna Bird.

Iowa’s attorney general is investigating alleged violations of the state’s anti-Diversity, Equity and Inclusion law, but US Rep. Randy Feenstra and Taylor Collins, a state legislator, aren’t waiting for the results. Instead, they’ve launched a pressure campaign on the state’s universities to fire the employees in question.

I can understand their lack of confidence in the attorney general.

Bird already failed in her attempt to sue a county sheriff she accused of breaking the state’s anti-immigration law. And just recently, she warned Republicans they shouldn’t expect action any time soon in the case of university employees who were secretly recorded being critical of Iowa RightThink.

Thus, the pressure campaign.

When I first wrote about the videos, I warned Republicans wouldn’t wait to prove their case, that they would instead exert political pressure on the Board of Regents and the universities to punish employees who dared to exercise their free speech rights.

The letter from Feenstra and Collins to university presidents, which was reported on last week by the Iowa Capital Dispatch, is proof.

As I pointed out previously, nobody has proved that these employees broke any law.

Yet, Feenstra and Collins have already proclaimed them guilty — all based on views, often vaguely expressed, that were contained in heavily-edited videos covertly recorded and aired on rightwing media. However, they don’t have confidence in the attorney general that she can prove they broke state law, so they use their political power to try to intimidate state institutions into preemptively violating the rights of their employees in order to ruin their careers.

This would be especially useful to Feenstra, who is critical of diversity, equity and inclusion, and by all appearances will run for Iowa governor but faces a primary contest.

I hope the presidents of Iowa’s universities stand up to this political pressure, that they will defend the rights of their employees. It would be especially embarrassing for the University of Iowa — just as a “center for intellectual freedom” is being formed there — to succumb to pressure from rightwing ideologues to fire employees simply because they have expressed opinions that run counter to the beliefs of the political party in power.

The center, by the way, is being created because of a mandate by Republicans in the state legislature, who apparently would not be the least bit embarrassed at violating the constitutional rights of university employees even as they insist upon “intellectual freedom” at those same universities.

I have said this before. I’ll say it again: If these employees actually violated the law, then Brenna Bird ought to have to prove it. If not, Iowa politicians ought to leave these employees alone and not try to force university presidents into doing Bird’s job for her.