Not wanted by local little league baseball teams, a local NJ gun dealer helps out a Rugby Club

It would be nice if the little league baseball teams were embarrassed by this behavior, but they problem won't be.

The local baseball league might not want Matt Carmel’s money. But he’s found a league that does. After the South Orange-Maplewood Baseball Committee turned down Carmel’s $300 check to sponsor a team, the nearby Morris Rugby Football club said “We’ll take that.” And so now, there will be a local rugby team called Constitution Arms, the name of Carmel’s gun dealership.

The baseball committee rejected Carmel’s sponsorship application, without giving him a reason why. But one of the committee members tells Fox News he voted against it because he was “certain that…it would generate controversy.” Craig Gruber, who’s been on the committee for 7 years told us, “We are a group of volunteers and quite frankly, we have our hands full running the league and deciding things like whether or not the infield fly rule should apply to 9 year olds.”

But Matt Carmel says that’s not fair. He says people have an irrational fear of guns and that besides, the league allows local wine stores to sponsor teams. He also points to another approved sponsor, a chicken restaurant called Cluck U, as being objectionable considering its risqué advertising campaign and name.

But the baseball league says it has broad authority to reject potential sponsors based on the well being of the kids who play. And the league just didn’t think a gun dealer was an appropriate sponsor. They tried to negotiate with Carmel to have remove the word “Arms” from his application, but that wasn’t good enough for him. Besides, he says, he’s selling legal products.

“I want to be able to sponsor and have people understand firearms and get some business from it. Obviously, profit is not a dirty word. I don’t know that I will get a lot of business from it. But I want to advocate and agitate for the 2nd amendment,” Carmel told Fox News. . . .