US gluten-free product salesTotal MLB stolen bases per season
American gluten-free aisles expanding while major-league stolen-base totals shrink. The runner is staying put. The shopper is moving on. Two pieces of athletic and dietary American culture, on opposite trajectories for completely independent reasons.
US gluten-free product sales grew from a niche category in 2008 to over 12 billion dollars by 2022, lifted by celiac diagnosis, broader gluten-avoidance dieting, and supermarket private-label expansion. MLB stolen bases per season fell from a 2010s peak as analytics rewrote how managers valued the play, with risk-aversion replacing aggressive baserunning until the 2023 rule changes reversed it. Two unrelated lines on opposite paths sharing a window because the same fourteen years happened to be a big era for one trend and a quiet era for another. Different fields, separate scoreboards.
One aisle expanded as one statistic shrank. The decade preferred different kinds of risk.
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