Major League Baseball, the organization that brought you the designated hitter, interleague play, and had a hand in Fever Pitch, has finally done something right and has started a green initiative.   All 32 teams are involved, but most notably, the Seattle Mariners, on Earth Day,

teamed up with Cedar Grove Composting for the first “carbon-neutral” game in the big leagues. To achieve carbon-neutral status, the Mariners offset the global-warming impact of energy used at Safeco Field during the game between the Mariners and Orioles.

To offset the impact of these emissions, the Mariners purchased high-quality carbon offsets from NativeEnergy, a leading carbon-offsets company that helps build and support new renewable energy projects, and 58,000 kilowatt hours of “green power” credits from the Seattle City Light Green Up program. [mlb.com]

As my uncle the Mariners fan adds, “The players did contribute to the cause, adding a power outage of their own, declining to hit any homers.”  Har har.   And as the Chicago Cubs point out, they didn’t even have lights at Wrigley Field until 1988, and that should count for something.   Of course, they also had Mark Grace play for them for a number of years, and the two packs a day he smoked probably cancelled out any positive environmental effect the lack of lights had.

Down here in San Diego, I’m not privy to any carbon offsets and the like, but I do know the Padres have a contract with these guys to come in after every game and get all the recyclables out of the stands and, you know, recycle them.   Also, I’m told by reliable sources (my friend David over gchat) that the new Dodger Stadium is going to be “all green yo.”  If you’re interested to find out what your favorite team does to help the environment, you can here and learn more (to be honest, pretty much whatever team you pick, it all goes to the same page).   And for all of you that aren’t baseball fans and weren’t interested in this post, go back to watching cricket and drinking tea and adding extra letters to words like color and neighbor or whatever you unamericans do.