Boycott pitch gathers speed
Enjoy tonight's MLB All-Star Game. It might be the last one we have of any substance for a couple years. Commissioner Selig is still refusing to move next year's game out of Phoenix, and as a result, it looks increasingly likely the sport's Hispanic ballplayers, en masse-- and hopefully others as well-- will refuse to participate in the 2011 game because of Arizona's draconian new anti-immigration law, one that codifies racial profiling and is now being challenged on Constitutional grounds by the United States Justice Department. (The lawsuit by the feds last week becomes the single most important-- and the bravest-- political action taken by the Obama administration during its first 18 months.)This ESPN story provides an updated roll call of sorts in regards to a players' boycott of the game. Padres All-Star firstbaseman Adrian Gonzalez is already on record as saying he would not participate in an All-Star exhibition in Arizona, and White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen said the same in May. In Anaheim this week, 2010 All-Stars Yovani Gallardo of the Brewers, Joakim Soria of the Royals, Jose Valverde of the Tigers, and the majors' leading home run slugger, Jose Bautista of the Blue Jays, all stated or suggested that they would refuse an All-Star Game appearance next summer. For the first time, to my knowledge, Albert Pujols is also described in a news article as opposing the Arizona legislation. That would be a large domino to fall, indeed. Pujols is a perennial All-Star player often described as the greatest player of his generation.
Some people are still asking the question: What do Major League Baseball and the Diamondbacks have to do with the passage of a law by the Arizona state legislature? The answer is this: plenty. Taxpayer funds built the hosting venue for the game. The Diamondbacks' ownership partnership is a major contributor to the Arizona state Republican Party that championed the legislation, and the chief sponsors of the measure have even had campaign fundraisers held at the ballpark hosted by the team owners. Of course, an event such as the MLB All-Star Game serves as a major economic engine for a city like Phoenix and a state such as Arizona. It's the height of hypocrisy to say that an arrangement like this between corporate and municipal entities shouldn't involve politics. The D'Backs' owners clearly believe politics is a game that only they should be allowed to play.
There's precedent for a professional sports boycott, too-- and a successful one. When Arizona voters rejected the federal Martin Luther King Jr. holiday in 1990, shortly after the National Football League had awarded the 1993 Super Bowl to the Grand Canyon State, the NFL's site selection committee met again and withdrew the game from Tempe and Sun Devil Stadium. It was relocated, along with an estimated $350 million in convention and tourism business, to Pasadena, California. Arizona voters finally passed the King referendum in 1992, and they hosted the Super Bowl in Tempe in 1996.
Power to the people.
---
Despite the overheated rhetoric, the Mexican border region of the United States continues to be one of the safest of the country in which to live.
posted by CM @ 6:45 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home