Steve Hochstadt: I don’t know how my parents’ political views, our family’s history during the Holocaust, rooting for the Brooklyn Dodgers, and Jackie’s own nobility and fearless civil rights activism mixed together to make me hate racism.
Pro Sports Can Help End Rape
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Dave Zirin: Sports bears a very specific responsibility to take this struggle on. No other institution reaches more men and no other institution plays a greater role in teaching boys how to define their own manhood and masculinity.
Roger Goodell: The Wayne LaPierre of the Sports World
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Dave Zirin: Like LaPierre, Goodell enforces a disciplined message that presents his harmful industry as American as apple pie in the name of profit.
How Can They Play? Murder, Suicide and the National Football League
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Dave Zirin: On the highest possible cultural platform, the NFL told the world that the death of a 22-year-old woman, the suicide of a player and the mental state of his teammates is secondary to the schedule.
Dissolving a Stain Painted by Henry Ford
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Walter Brasch: It’s possible my family, and thousands of other Jewish families, may some day buy a Ford. The stain the company’s founder painted onto his product has faded.
Rest in Power, Marvin Miller
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Dave Zirin: Mr. Miller never played the game, but he may have had more influence on baseball than anyone else in this half of the century.
Why Does the 99 Percent Let Athletes, Executives, and Movie Stars Get Away with Huge Salaries?
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Walter Moss: When Babe Ruth was asked about earning more than the president, he responded, “I know, but I had a better year than Hoover.”
Condi’s World: Fantasies and Post Hoc Fallacies
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Andy Love: So, despite their best efforts to rewrite history, will Bush, Cheney and Rice be viewed as villains or inept clowns? The answer can be found in another philosophical proposition: The Unity of Opposites. They can be villains and clowns.
The Debt-Ceiling Deal Disaster
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Brent Budowsky: House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) could not deliver enough Republican votes. He was some 40 votes short. At the very moment when Democrats had leverage, they still caved and asked for and received nothing in return.
The Biggest Driver in the Deficit Battle: Standard & Poor’s
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Robert Reich: Standard & Poor’s insists any deal must also contain a credible, bipartisan plan to reduce the nation’s long-term budget deficit by $4 trillion — something neither Harry Reid’s nor John Boehner’s plans do.
‘10 Commandments Judge’ Running for President
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Walter Brasch: The chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court who was removed from office for defying the Constitution and a federal court order is one of 14 major candidates running for the Republican nomination for the presidency.
Striking Out in Phoenix: MLB’s Lack of Respect for Latinos
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Alvaro Huerta: Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig recently struck out, big time, by stubbornly refusing to relocate the 82nd All-Star Game from Phoenix, Arizona, to another city due to the desert state’s racist immigration law, SB 1070.
Republicans Keep Flunking on Union Issues, but Trumka Puts Democrats on Notice, Too
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Berry Craig: Many union members were deeply disappointed when Congress failed to do more to stimulate the economy and create jobs. Unions wanted more health care reform than Congress delivered, too.
Don’t Discriminate
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Steve Hochstadt: Ending discrimination will not be achieved through a new military policy nor by new laws. Such political acts reflect an evolving popular understanding that America can prosper by defending equality.
The Showdown On Tax Cuts for the Rich
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Robert Reich: In political terms, a strong stand enables the President to clearly demonstrate who’s side he’s on (the working and middle class that’s still bearing the brunt of this lousy economy) and who’s side the Republicans are on (the powerful and privileged who brought much of this on, and who are now doing just fine).
Why the Lame Duck Congress Must Extend Jobless Benefits For Hard-Hit Families But Not Tax Cuts For the Rich
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Robert Reich: Don’t extend the Bush tax cuts to the wealthy. Give unemployment benefits to people who need them.
How Affirmative Action Brought Willie Mays to the New York Giants
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Sherwood Ross: Willie Mays, thought by many baseball writers to be the greatest player who ever wore spikes, was passed up by three major league clubs due to outright racial prejudice or to quota systems that limited them to just one Negro star.
Ozzie Guillen Speaks Truth on Baseball’s Racial Double Standard
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Randy Shaw: It’s clear that MLB fears that formally recognizing its proliferation of Spanish-speaking players by providing interpreters could cause a backlash from a predominately white male fan base that likely supports Arizona’s anti-Latino law.
Baseball Justice
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Peter Dreier: Major League Baseball’s corporate mentality, its failure to deal with widespread drug use, and its decline in popularity among America’s youth (more of whom now play soccer than Little League baseball), don’t reflect well on what its pooh-bahs still call the “national pastime.”
How to Win the Arizona Boycott
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Randy Shaw: For the Arizona boycott to succeed, activists must follow the lessons of the UFW grape and lettuce boycotts of the 1960’s and 1970’s, the South Africa divestment campaign of the 1970s and 1980’s, and the UNITE HERE “Hotel Rising Boycott” of 2006. And the timing is perfect for a “Boycott Summer,” which would boost immigrant rights activism both in Arizona and nationally.
Baseball Has Lost Some of Its Soul
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William J. Astore: But I despair at the way money and media and mercenary players have invaded the game and changed its character from a pastime to a business. Just one recent example: today’s opener between the Red Sox and Yankees was moved to 8:05 PM for the benefit of ESPN Sunday night baseball in the hopes of garnering higher ratings and advertising revenue. Few seem to care about inconveniencing the fans, or flouting the tradition of opening day played in the afternoon under God’s natural light.
When Did God Become America’s Concierge?
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Major league baseball has generated more great stories, than any other sport, about the delightfully odd assortment of characters that played the game across the past 175 or so years. Watching a video yesterday of Sarah Palin in her Wasilla church beseeching God to get her pipeline proposal approved reminded me one such story, supposedly [...]
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