I was all ready to write about the cacophonous silence coming from baseball players in regards to their teams’ green initiatives. With a LEED-certified stadium (silver) from the Nationals, Minnesota seeking their own new LEED stadium (gold), solar panels at Fenway, green power purchasing and major recycling at the Phillies’ Citizens Bank Park, 95% recycled steel at the Mets new Citi Field, and on and on across Major League Baseball, it seemed like a major loss that no players were acting as the spokespeople, that the conduit between teams’ green initiatives and fans were essentially PR people.

That’s no longer the case. Chris Dickerson from the Cinncinati Reds and Jack Cassel from the Cleveland Indians launched We Play Green, an initiative to get athletes–many of them baseball players–to make green changes to their everyday routines. They’re looking to bring environmental awareness to the locker rooms, to get players to shed their umpteen water bottles in favor of refillable bottles, to recycle, and to leverage their clout to get stadiums and city officials to do more. Geoff Jenkins of the Phillies is on board (his “inspiring” message: “I still recycle”), as is the Red Sox’ Jacoby Ellsbury (”I think many people think plastic just kind of melts away”), Joe Smith of the Mets (who quotes Art Bushwald, “and Man created the plastic bag…”) and Mike Aviles of the Cleveland Indians (”Everyone can do something”). It’s a major step for baseball, to put influential faces in front of these environmental efforts with people who have a lot more clout with fans than the guys and gals in the head office.