All-Star Speak Out: Baseball Players Pledge to Boycott
Arizona All Star Game

By Dave Zirin
The Nation
July 13, 2010

http://www.thenation.com/blog/37364/all-star-speak-out-baseball-players-pledge-boycott-arizona-all-star-game

If Major League Baseball's 2011 All-Star Game is held
as planned in the anti-immigrant "meth lab of
democracy" otherwise known as Arizona, players are
letting it be known that the show will go on without
them. On Monday's media day for this week's 2010 game
in Anaheim, several Latino All-Stars were asked for
their thoughts about next year's game taking place in a
state being monitored by the justice department for
racial profiling.

"If the game is in Arizona, I will totally boycott,"
said Milwaukee Brewers pitcher Yovani Gallardo. Kansas
City reliever Joakim Soria and Detroit Tigers pitcher
Jose Valverde seconded that emotion. ''They could stop
me and ask to see my papers. I have to stand with my
Latin community on this," said Soria.

The three have now joined San Diego Padres all-star
Adrian Gonzalez, and his teammates Yorvit Torrealba,
and Heath Bell along with Chicago White Sox manager
Ozzie Guillen in stating that they would stay away from
Arizona next summer.

Other even more prominent players didn't call for a
boycott, but they made their feelings exceedingly
clear. Major League home run leader, Toronto Blue Jays
outfielder Jose Bautista said,  ''Hopefully, there are
some changes in the law before [next year]. We have to
back up our Latin communities.''

The biggest star in the game, Albert Pujols, came out
in direct opposition to his Arizona-law-loving manager
Tony LaRussa, saying, "I'm opposed to it. How are you
going to tell me that, me being Hispanic, if you stop
me and I don't have my ID, you're going to arrest me?
That can't be.''

A spokesperson for the Baseball Players Association
also made news by saying they would fully back any
player who chose to boycott the 2011 game.

[As a side-note, Alex Rodriguez - Major League
Baseball's answer to Lebron James in too many ways to
name - was also asked about Arizona's laws but just
said, ''Wrong guy," and then pointed to other players
in the locker room. Rodriguez then proceeded to drown
after attempting to make love to his own reflection in
a nearby duck pond.]

This flurry of commentary in this most staid of sports
threatens to overshadow Tuesday's Midsummer Classic and
spotlight the political and moral impotence of Major
League commissioner Bud Selig. Selig refused to comment
on the issue today and his one statement all season on
the issue managed to be both puzzling and inane .
(After much analysis, it was determined that Selig
wants the game to stay in Arizona.) Selig's constant
crutch of no-comments may be coming to an abrupt end.

The sports media wasn't asking about immigration out of
concern for the 28% of Major Leaguers born outside the
United States. They were probing the actual political
thoughts of players because of a very real, growing
movement of civil rights and grass roots organizations
calling on MLB to move the game.

On Monday morning, the organization movethegame.org
held a press conference where they showcased more than
100,000 names who had signed their petition calling on
Major League Baseball to act. A protest has also been
called for Tuesday at 3pm right at Angel Stadium, on
all American Gene Autry Way in Anaheim.

As Wade Henderson, president of the Leadership
Conference on Civil and Human Rights and Janet Murguia
is president of the National Council of La Raza wrote
in an oped on Alternet, "Unless the league acts, next
year our favorite all-stars could enter a hostile
environment, and the families, friends and fans of a
third of the players could be treated as second-class
citizens because of their skin color or the way they
speak.. We are not asking Selig to weigh in on
immigration policy; we are asking him to take a stand
against bigotry and intolerance. Despite being
petitioned by numerous members of Congress and civil
rights, labor and social justice groups, Selig has not
adequately addressed the issue."

He certainly has not. But if civil rights activists
keep up the pressure on the outside and players keep
speaking out on the inside, Selig will have no choice
but to make perfectly clear where he stands on the most
basic civil rights of his own players. If the NFL could
move the Super Bowl from Arizona two decades ago
because they wouldn't acknowledge Martin Luther King's
birthday; if the NCAA can keep post-season tournaments
out of states that still fly the confederate flag, then
Bud Selig can wipe that hang-dog look off his face,
straighten his back, and do the right thing.  If not
for the people, he can do it for Pujols.

c 2010 The Nation

Dave Zirin is the author of Welcome to the Terrordome:
the Pain Politics and Promise of Sports (Haymarket) and
the newly published A People's History of Sports in the
United States (The New Press). and his writing has
appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Sports
Illustrated.com, New York Newsday and The Progressive.
He is the host of XM Radio's Edge of Sports Radio.
Contact him at [log in to unmask]

_____________________________________________

Portside aims to provide material of interest
to people on the left that will help them to
interpret the world and to change it.

Submit via email: [log in to unmask]
Submit via the Web: portside.org/submit
Frequently asked questions: portside.org/faq
Subscribe: portside.org/subscribe
Unsubscribe: portside.org/unsubscribe
Account assistance: portside.org/contact
Search the archives: portside.org/archive