Tag: war and sports

Can’t I Just Watch Baseball?

W.J. Astore

Yesterday was opening day for the Boston Red Sox, my hometown team, with lots of hoopla, a gigantic American flag, the National Anthem and God Bless America, all the trappings of feel-good patriotism. Nothing unusual here. Except there were two ceremonies in honor of the brave defenders of Ukraine, with cameras cutting to Ukrainian flags in the crowd. Two months ago, most Americans couldn’t have cared less about Ukraine, if they’d even heard of it or could place it on a map. Now we’re all on the same team, rooting for them to win, as if they’re all-Americans in war.

The first ceremony was a moment of silence for those suffering from the Ukraine war. Ukrainians were mentioned; Russians weren’t. (I guess Russians aren’t suffering from the war.) The second ceremony marked a long trip to America for a Ukrainian refugee, a celebration, I suppose, of America’s willingness to let in a few refugees from that war. There’s nothing wrong with this, but what does it have to do with baseball? Why is it being celebrated on opening day at Fenway Park?

There is no place for such brazenly political ceremonies at a baseball game. It’s all emotional manipulation and state propaganda. We are all supposed to love plucky Ukraine now and hate perfidious Russia. Even Russians who run longstanding restaurants in Boston have had to explain that they don’t support Putin and his war. If they stay silent, they run the risk of being boycotted because they obviously must be Putin puppets.

Meanwhile, the U.S. government continues to send more and more weaponry to Ukraine, even as we’re encouraged to say silent prayers for that war-torn country. Weapons as peacemakers: it’s a uniquely American sport, the winners being companies like Raytheon and Lockheed Martin, providers of missiles to the world.

You know that old song, “Take me out to the ball game”? When did Ukraine become the home team, and why am I being so manipulated to root for them? Can’t I just forget about war for a few hours and root for the Red Sox?

Even on Jackie Robinson Day in Boston, the war in Ukraine intruded on the Opening Day ceremonies (Jackie wore #42, which is why all players are wearing that number)

If Only Americans Followed Wars Like Sports

Score! Bobby Orr! One of my bedroom wall posters

W.J. Astore

I’m a big sports fan. I grew up in the Boston area and loved my local teams. When I was a kid, I had two big posters of Bobby Orr, the famed defenseman of the Boston Bruins, on my wall. I had a Boston Red Sox uniform. When I threw a baseball around, I imagined I was Luis Tiant, the mercurial and entertaining pitcher for the Red Sox, or Dwight Evans, the team’s rocket-armed right fielder. I collected baseball cards and studied the stats on the back for hours on end.

But I was also a kid who kept a scrapbook on the Yom Kippur War of 1973. I was ten years old yet I was attracted to war and its nitty-gritty details as much as I was to the sporting world. Who knows why. Temperament, I suppose. As I grew older, I built lots of military models and read more and more books about the military even as I kept an interest in sports (more as a fan than a participant, since my talent level was modest at best).

This was on my mind this AM as I read a detailed article on Red Sox second baseman Dustin Pedroia, whose stellar career was cut short by injuries. The article focused on whether Pedroia deserved election to the Baseball Hall of Fame.* Highly detailed, well written, and showing an estimable command of statistics, the article impressed me even as it got me to thinking. What if Americans examined wars like they studied sports? What if Afghanistan was covered with the same detail as the forthcoming NFL draft? What if there was a channel like ESPN devoted to wars 24/7 rather than to sports? And what if the reporting was objective and honest?

You can’t fool a sophisticated sports fan with a bunch of home-team boosterism that’s disconnected from the facts on the ground (or on the baseball diamond, the football field, the ice hockey rink, etc.). Why are so many people so easily fooled about the need to continue the Afghan War, which is now in its 20th year and where the U.S.-led coalition is losing more than ever?

If the Afghan War were a U.S. sports team, it would be a team that spent more money than any other team even as it lost more games, cycling through a new losing coach every year and an unmemorable cast of players that changed each season. Despite the hiring of much-hyped “coaches” like David Petraeus and Stanley McChrystal, despite promises of pennant-winning “surges” by team presidents like Barack Obama, our imaginary Afghan War sports team was and remains a cellar dweller, forever mired in last place.

What red-blooded American sports fan would tolerate more of the same from such a loser team? What fan would keep cheering for such a team? What fan would say, “let’s stay the course,” even as more and more losses piled up?

Consider this article from yesterday’s New York Times:

*****

The Taliban Close In on Afghan Cities, Pushing the Country to the Brink

The Taliban have positioned themselves around several major population centers, including the capital of Kandahar Province, as the Biden administration weighs whether to withdraw or to stay.

*****

What should Team Biden do? “To stay” is to stay on the same losing course we’ve been on for 20 years. “To withdraw” is a new course that has the virtue of ending the bleeding (at least for the U.S.). Which action would you choose?

Any sports fan worth his or her salt would know the answer here. Call withdrawal a “rebuilding” year and most sports fans would accept it. It’s a far better choice than staying and losing with the same old tactics and cast of characters.

Just about every American sports fan has heard the saying: Winning isn’t everything–it’s the only thing. Well, we’re not winning in Afghanistan and we never will. So the only smart thing left to do is to leave.

*Pedroia gets my vote for the Hall of Fame. It’s not simply about stats. Pedey was a winner, a leader, a gutsy overachiever who played the game the right way. Rookie of the year, MVP, World Series winner, he gave it his all on every play. Sometimes, the so-called intangibles matter.