Patriotism at the Ballpark

L astmonthIdrovemytwelve-year-oldsondownfromSanFranciscoto Los Angeles to attend Opening Day of the baseball season at Dodger Stadium. We’rebothGiantsfans;welovegoingtogamestogether;theGiantswerekicking off the season against their great rivals, the Dodgers. But it turned out we were goingtomuchmorethanabaseballgame. Prior to the game, as always, the crowd of some 50,000 was instructed to stand and removeourhatsfortheStarSpangledBanner .OnthisceremonialOpeningDay,however,the National Anthem was accompanied by the unfurling of a gigantic American flag that graduallycoveredtheentireoutfield.AsanopponentofthewarinIraqandcoercivepatriotism , my son never wants to stand for the Anthem, and I’ve had to go through verbal contortions to persuade him that in spite of our common feelings about this matter, he should still standinordertonotappeartoshowcontemptforothersaroundusoratleasttoavoidbeing punched in the mouth, but that we could do so without standing at attention or putting our hatsoverourhearts,asisthecustomoftruebelievers. Butthegiantflagwasmoremorallycompromising,andIwastheonewhosnappedwhen attheheightoftheceremony,threeNavyjets,describedas“bombers”overthepublicaddress system,flewoverheadwithadeafeningroar.AsIranupthestepstotherearofthestandsto escape with a shred of my conscience remaining, my son shouted “Dad!” and scurried after me not really knowing what panic had suddenly overcome me, the supposedly reasonable, balancedonewithalltheexplanations.Andourmoraltrialwasn’tover:thewholethinghappenedalloveragaininthe “seventhinningstretch”betweenthetopandbottomhalvesofthe inning,whenthenormal“TakeMeOuttotheBallgame”wasreplacedbyaglorioussingingof “God Bless America” (since 9/11, this ritual substitution has occurred throughout the major leaguesonweekendsandonspecialoccasions). The Giants lost 5-0, but the idea was that at a higher level we had participated in a ritual that had reaffirmed our national unity. The point is the more telling when you consider that sincethegamewasinLosAngeles,andevenfactoringintheself-selectionofthosewhogoto baseball games, more than half that crowd likely voted for Kerry, opposed the war, and felt confusedly pulled along by some iconic larger “We” that overpowered and more-than-halfsilencedthem . The point here is that sports as a cultural phenomenon is much more than a game, and alsomorethana“business”asthemediacynicssometimescharacterizeit—itisanimportant 30 T I K K U N W W W. T I K K U N . O R G J U LY / A U G U S T 2 0 0 8 FLICKRCC/KIDGRIFTER (TOP LEFT), FLICKRCC/MKNOBIL (TOP RIGHT) TheMoralDimensionofSports AreBaseballOwners’InvestmentsOurBusiness? 1.PatriotismattheBallpark byPeterGabel How concerned should we be if the same people who invest in our "National Pastime" (above left) also invest in companies that are enabling the horrors of Darfur (top right)? politics_2.qxd:Politics 6/11/08 12:35 PM Page 30 public activity saturated with moral meaning that plays a role in shaping popular consciousness. And becausesportsisoverlainwiththismoraldimension, progressives should insist that sports be a contested terrainfromamoralstandpointratherthanjustceding this cultural arena to the Right as the supposed political haven for winners and tough guys. We have already seen a positive example of this kind of progressive resistance in the worldwide demonstrations againsttherunningoftheOlympictorchpriortothis summer’s Olympic Games in Beijing, contesting China’s claim to international legitimacy as the host ofalloftheworld’ssportsteamsbychallengingitsoccupationofTibetanditsinvestmentsinDarfur . But the same kind of moral struggle should be carried out across the sporting spectrum, including,forexample,challengingthewillingnessofsomanyAmericansportsteamstorequire their players to wear the Nike “swoosh” in spite of Nike’s exploitation of international childlabor,orallowingthenoisyloutsonFoxSportsNet’s“TheBestDamnSportsShowPeriod ”toutteranysexistthoughtsthatcomeintotheirmindsonnationaltelevision.Ifsports aregoingtobewrappedintheAmericanflag,let’schallengethosewhodosotoalsocelebrate thepositiveaccomplishmentsofAmericansocialmovementsandtheprogressivemoralvalues by which these movements in part have redefined American identity. Major League Baseball’s decision to spend the entire 2007 season honoring Jackie Robinson for his courage in risking his life and health to break baseball’s color barrier in 1947 is an excellent example of just this kind of public linkage of sport with a commitment to social justice, and itcontrastssharplywithbaseball’snormalfareofmilitaryspectaclesglorifyinghowtoughwe areandhowwecankickpeople’sasses. Thearticlethatfollowsshowshowthemoraldimensionofsportsplaysoutinthecontext of the investment practices of team owners—in this case, in the investment decisions of the owners of one of Tikkun’s local baseball teams, the San Francisco Giants. At the present time, baseballownershipgroups andthe mediawho report on them conceive of teamownership as basically a form of private investment like any other, with owners having the right to manage their assets and pursue their own economic self-interest without regard to the moral and social consequences of their actions. But this self-interested and privatized view of the prerogatives of owners and investors overlooks the fact that sports teams have a public and civic relationship with the team’s home city, with that city’s culture and values, and with the tens of thousands of fans who provide the team with its revenue precisely because of this communal identification. And it’s in significant part because of...