Raceball: SB 1070 and MLB’s Political Responsibility Conundrum

MLB Commissioner Bud Selig can use the league to further his own political agenda. But should he?

How To Watch Sports is extremely pleased to welcome political correspondent Ben Chatterton for this article. Check out more of his work at http://benchatt.posterous.com.

In 1936, Jesse Owens stuck it to the man. The man, in this case, was Adolf Hitler, and Owens’ exceptional achievement of four Olympic gold medals was an honor to Americans of all ethnicities, but especially to African Americans. The most notable racist of our era was made to eat crow on his own turf. It didn’t get much better than that. But racial politics and sport did not have their first or last meeting in Nazi Berlin. All sport, especially American sport, has had plenty of history involving pioneers breaking barriers of prejudice. These pioneers are universally hailed these days for their efforts, some of whom attained levels of fame unseen by all but the most brilliant stars in civil rights activism.

More sticky, it seems, are situations in which race, politics, and sport collide on more ambiguous terrain. Apparently, these days, that terrain happens to be Arizona. In case you’ve had your head in a bucket of lukewarm Jell-O for the last month or so, our 48th State has passed a law that affects immigration enforcement, the so-called SB 1070. Supporters claim the law fills a gap left by federal inaction, and will reduce violent and drug-related crime. Opponents say that the law will institutionalize racial profiling and make life difficult for legal Hispanic residents. Many city governments have instituted boycotts against Arizona, and quite a number of voices have been raised calling for the MLB All-Star Game to pull out of Phoenix’s Chase Field this year in protest.

This wouldn’t be unprecedented. In 1990, the venue for 1993′s Super Bowl XVII was moved from Phoenix suburb Tempe in protest of the state’s refusal to recognize Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. In 1992, the state’s voters approved the holiday. The removal of the Super Bowl has been seen by those who originally supported the action as a primary reason for the approval, and a major civil rights victory.

People interested in a boycott should examine the recent actions of the Phoenix Suns in this regard. The story goes, in most of the versions I’ve read, that owner Bob Sarver came to a team meeting and asked if players wanted to wear their Noche Latina jerseys on Cinco de Mayo in protest of the law. The ayes were unanimous and so they made it happen. A lot of people didn’t agree with this move, claiming that sports should keep its nose out of politics, but because the team was united, they were prepared for any blowback that might happen.

Anyone can tell that today’s America is sharply divided. The Right and the Left are at each other’s throats, and any issue, great or small, is blown far out of proportion in a partisan battle for dominance. In Bill Bishop’s seminal sociopolitical book, The Big Sort, the line between political and personal lives is shown to be very thin. Personal choices have become politicized, and idea men can tell as much about your politics by your pets and vehicles as they can anything else. In this kind of climate, if you’re going to boycott something like 1070, you’re going to make a lot of people angry. You will have blowback, and it will be financial, no matter what you do. The safe course, obviously, is to make a bold verbal statement on behalf of the MLB against racial profiling and discrimination, then keep the All-Star Game in Phoenix.

The other course is to move the game. But to do that, you’d better be prepared to stand together and weather the storm. Los Suns could do that, as they happened to be rocking at the time, and because they were unanimous. Bud Selig can’t do it by himself, and if MLB takes a stand, it shouldn’t do it without a near-unanimous vote from MLBPA or the owners, because rocking is not something the steroid-beset game has been doing lately, especially when compared to the NBA or the NFL. Essentially, yes, it’s good to take a stand, and yes, it’s fine to get involved in politics, but you’d better be prepared to back it up.

That being said, the MLB appears unlikely to reach enough consensus in either players or fans to really make a boycott look as though it were coming from Baseball itself rather than a couple incensed administrators. In fact, the Latino population of the MLB is similar in percentage to the Latino population of Arizona. It looks like baseball’s best recourse is to make a bold statement against the law on paper (which the MLBPA has already done), keep the All-Star game in Phoenix, and hope for the best. The most boycotting that will probably happen to the All-Star Game will come on the part of individual players, which could change the game in a serious way. An All-Star Game without All-Stars is just another game.