SECAUCUS, N.J. — Brent Suter is trying to save the world.
Being a professional athlete while balancing your own foundation or charitible cause can be a difficult ask. For Suter, it's not a problem: His love for the planet is something he's been passionate about since high school, and it permeated his college education. It's authentic, genuine and sincere.
"It comes from the heart, it's a passion of mine," Suter told Sporting News. "It's not work for me. It comes from a place where there's not really a lacking of energy. I really have a lot of passion and energy about this."
Suter, a pitcher for the Milwaukee Brewers, is rehabbing from Tommy John surgery, and aims for a July return, a bit earlier than the conservative September date set for him. He's spent the time away from the diamond with his young son — just 6 months old — trying to forge a plan to make baseball a more eco-friendly game.
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Along with his wife Erin, Suter takes an eco-friendly approach to his life: They have solar panels on their home, they avoid eating meat (especially beef) and they compost, as well. Suter has also partnered with various organizations in Milwaukee, including the Urban Ecology Center, an organization dedicated to transforming landscapes into natural spaces, hoping to attract urban youth to become more in touch with nature and learn about it.
But the love for the planet came long before he had a platform to do something about it.
"It started really back, early in high school, I was watching 'An Inconvenient Truth.' It opened my eyes to the fact that the planet is going in a direction that's not sustainable, how we're living," Suter said. "That kind of put it on my heart to study it in college.
"Now that I'm a baseball player, I want to use the platform to advance and spread the awareness of the environment, my own causes. I want to get people to use a reuseable bottle or a reusable grocery bag. Just little things we can do to help the environment go a long way."
Suter has an Environmental Science and Public Policy degree from a little school called Harvard University, and his original plan was to go into that field after college. Then, baseball came calling, and he was drafted by the Brewers in the 31st round of the 2012 MLB Draft. It's no matter for Suter, who now makes good on his platform to bring awareness to environmental issues.
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But for a baseball player, the green approach can be — admittedly, as Suter said — a bit more difficult.
"I don't try and preach too, too much. I try and live by example a little bit more," he said. "I use bright green Tupperware instead of styrofoam and paper and plastic cups. I use Tupperware with reusable utensils. That got some weird looks, especially when I got called up. But guys were supportive of it."
For a baseball player so environmentally forward-thinking, reaching the majors while being so passionate about the subject can be daunting. Suter said he was embraced by manager Craig Counsell and outfielder Ryan Braun, two of the club's more environmentally conscious members, when he arrived in 2016. From that point on, Suter was just himself, including using a reusable water bottle in the dugout.
"Some guys come up and say, 'Do you ever want to put that down?'" Suter said with a laugh. "… It's one of those things that, I get ocassional ribbing, but it's all in good nature, and my teammates respect what I'm doing."
In fact, it's common to see squeeze bottles or reusable bottles in other sports, but rarely is that seen in MLB. Given the mental images of Gatorade cups, chewing gum and sunflower seed packages littered around a dugout, how does Suter handle it?
"It gives me the heebie-jeebies," he said with a cringe and a nervous laugh.
Suter has taken those heebie-jeebies and turned them into a positive: In 2019, he launched the StrikeOut Waste campaign, an effort to get his Brewers teammates to use reusable water bottles over those paper cups in the dugout and bullpen. The campaign hasn't reached position players yet, but Suter said starting pitchers have taken to it.
For baseball players who are so used to routine, Suter believes that altering that routine could alter performance. He's given teammates the opportunity to use the water bottles over those cups, a small but potentially welcome change in trying to cut down waste.
"I don't want to mess up players' performance at all. I'm just trying to urge players, 'Hey, if you want to do it, I'll get you this water bottle and you can take initiative of it. I want you to be in control of it.' Kind of pass the power to them and not be the nagging teammate," Suter said. "So far that approach hasn't yielded the best in-game results. Guys are using it in the clubhouse, which is good. In the dugout, it'll be a challenge."
The good news for Suter is that he doesn't have to go on the eco-crusade by himself. As a member of Players for the Planet — an organization started by Chris Dickerson in 2007 — Suter and other players take on environmentally friendly projects around the world. One of the group's bigger projects included cleaning up beaches in the Dominican Republic during the offseason, partnering with Parley ocean cleanup, in which MLB All-Stars Robinson Cano and Nelson Cruz helped.
All in all, Suter is encouraged by the progress that he's seen amongst players. He enjoys the dialogue with fellow Brewers teammates and tries to find out what makes them tick: what are the motivations and how he can help further and engage more players. His work to save the Earth is well underway, and he's got plenty of goals left in mind.
"Ideally, with the StrikeOut Waste campaign, (my first goal) is to get that image of the dugout clean," Suter said. "Having people use the bottles more than not. MLB-wide, to have some adoption of the bottle program. Have every stadium be LED lights, every stadium be 100-percent compost.
"That would be a big step for MLB, and we're working towards it every day."
For those interested in supporting the StrikeOut Waste campaign, click here. For every shirt purchased, 100 percent of the proceeds go to Milwaukee's Urban Ecology Center.
