In their professional lives, athletes exist in a parallel world where the black and white rules of the game for reality. In baseball, a ball is a ball and a strike is a strike. No question. But outside the stadiums and arenas, baseball players are also citizens. They live in a world of politics that does not resemble the rigid regulations that define their professional lives. When this outside world invades the field of play, as it did this past summer for Blue Jay’s slugger Carlos Delgado, the reaction from fans can be explosive.
We often expect our athletes to remain in the reality of the game – to discuss the game afterwards, to sign our paraphernalia, but not to enter our world. Subtly, Delgado did just that with his polite protest of the U.S. invasion Iraq when he began staying put in the dugout while “God Bless America” blared from the speaker boxes of ballparks across America during the seventh inning stretch. At first, Delgado’s ive resistance— rooted in his experience as a native Puerto Rican who rallied against U.S. Navy weapons-testing on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques —went undetected by fans and the media. That they also ignored the ramifications of bringing the world of politics into sports was justified by the need to be patriotic, to a nation still healing from the wounds of the September 11th terrorist attacks. And after all, what’s more patriotic than America’s pastime?
In late July, just as Delgado’s team, the Blue Jays, were about to begin a series in that paean of patriotism, Yankee stadium, against the most patriotic of teams, the New York Yankees, his anti-war stance and silent protest grabbed the attention of the National media. At this point, the situation spiraled out of control in the U.S. media. The slugger’s well thought out position was transformed by his most extreme detractors into an anti-American, borderline terrorist, stance. “You won’t be anti-U.S. when you’re cashing that big cheque in our banks on Friday, Carlos” they sneered in chat rooms. Fortunately, cooler heads in the U.S. media recognized that calling Carlos Delgado a terrorist, or even anti-American, was the equivalent of confusing a ground rule double with a home run. The initial shock and resentment quelled, but its legacy is revelatory about the state of sports and politics in the latest millennium. Here was a man who dared to be more than the folkloric baseball we could adulate. He had a batting stance and a war stance. Unlike the majority of other athletes whose political commentary is limited to juvenile diatribes employing the euphemisms of war to describe the game — such as Kevin Garnett of the Minnesota Timberwolves’ rant before Game 7 of the Conference semi-final match against the Sacramento Kings — Delgado chose to stand up — more correctly, sit down — for his beliefs. He transcended the narrow hard-fast rules of his sport, as well as the darker, unspoken rule that athletes should remain uncontroversial. He did not choose to abuse his fame by espousing or attempting to shape the opinions of those legions that adore him for the way he swings a bat. He merely expressed a feeling he genuinely felt as a U.S. citizen, proud of his country but against their war. His detractors attempted to make politics a black and white game, demanding Delgado to be for the country and everything it did, or else against everything for which they stand.
It is true. Carlos Delgado is a millionaire many times over because of baseball. But this fact does not rob him of his rights as a citizen. This is democracy, ? Freedom to collect what market capitalism will yield, freedom to further freedom around the globe, and freedom to speak out against perceived wrongs in this latter process. God Bless Carlos, and the rare athletes like him.
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