No Game 32, Mariners vs. Pretending Things are Normal
I knew that this strange, seemingly slapdash season was a risk. I knew it could potentially put players at risk, and I knew it was harder to really get excited about a 60-game season with all sorts of rule changes thrown in at the last minute. But since it started, I’ve been kind of surprised at how much I’ve enjoyed it. I love baseball, so it’s not *that* shocking, but I actually don’t like missing any of these games, which is not something I said about the 2019 season, as long and unsullied by rule changes and Jays-in-Buffalo as it was.
Baseball’s attachment to tradition isn’t just about records or numbers or even about memories of childhood and intergenerational conversations. It’s the way it seems to exist out of time – that people can turn on or go to a game to get away from everything else that demands that you pay attention to the present. It’s an escape, and it’s an effective one because it’s designed to be familiar, and look more or less the same as it did when you were a kid (this is especially true this year, with the spate of throwback powder blue uniforms, dating back to…my childhood), with the promise that it’ll look more or less the same when your own kids are grown. I have *needed* that this year more than any other. I have desperately needed to shut off the news, to put the paper down, and just get away from 2020, at least as much as you can under Covid-19 threat. Today, sports stars have decided that the most powerful thing that they can do is to shut that escape valve, to say, at least for right now, you’ve got to pay attention to the news, and you have to act. They are 100% right to do so.
The Milwaukee Bucks kicked it off when they decided to essentially go on strike and potentially forfeit a playoff game after the shooting of Jacob Blake and then the killing of two protestors last night. It was in their back yard, and they decided that playing would allow too many people to tune out Kenosha and instead watch a majority of black players play a game from the relative safety of the Orlando bubble. The rest of the league followed suit. Then, the Milwaukee Brewers decided to do the same thing, and not play tonight’s scheduled contest with the Reds. Once that happened, and probably a bit before then, the M’s decision not to play tonight in San Diego seemed like a fait accompli. The M’s Black players have tried to keep the focus on issues of social justice, and this is probably the best way they could turn their activism into something concrete.
Many on social media are excoriating teams, saying that this strike isn’t concrete action at all, and won’t help Blake walk again. But it’s much more than a statement or kneeling before the anthem. They, like the NBA and WNBA, wanted to believe that these things – BLM patches on the uniform, or BLM written in the dirt of the pitcher’s mound, or pre-game ceremonies – might help inform people on the fence, might help make a case to the millions of fans tuning in. And they now don’t believe that these things are enough, because they pretty self-evidently aren’t. At that point, they can either produce counter-programming to the news from Kenosha, from Minneapolis, from all over the country, or they could withhold it.
Here’s Dee Gordon on twitter just a little while ago:
I have had my problems with the M’s as an organization, and have been somewhat skeptical about their step-back rebuild. But I am incredibly proud to be an M’s fan today. Proud of you Taijuan, JP, Dee, Shed, Kyle, Justus, Justin, Aaron, Tim, and every player on the team that stood with them. Go Mariners.
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8 Responses to “No Game 32, Mariners vs. Pretending Things are Normal”
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“I am incredibly proud to be an M’s fan today. Proud of you Taijuan, JP, Dee, Shed, Kyle, Justus, Justin, Aaron, Tim, and every player on the team that stood with them. Go Mariners.”
Amen and hear, hear!
Awesome non-game post!
It seems bloody obvious something needs to change. Good on them.
I really, really, REALLY don’t understand the push-back on any of this. The dude was shot in the back, what – seven times? Yet there are people who somehow try to justify it, just like they believe kneeling on a guy’s neck until he’s dead is apparently okay.
I don’t buy the “defund the cops” nonsense – we saw how many people died in the CHOP over the course of a few cop-free days. But it sure seems like we need a major re-think of how policing is supposed to work – and, if possible, that needs to be done by people other than the politicians on either side of the aisle.
The defund-the-police notion touches on something important, but I personally think they have it backwards.
Rather than defund the police, I think they should increase funding and hire specialists educated and trained in areas outside of standard police work.
For example, hire social workers & therapists who can take the lead to address domestic disputes; others to address mental health emergencies. Specially designed courses might be necessary, but that’s something that has arguably been long overdue.
You would have to give those specialists the same authority, and regular officers initially called to a dispute might need to establish control & maintain order until a specialist arrives, then possibly assist, but the idea would be to take the responsibility (and stress) of sensitive situations out of the hands of the regular street cops as much as possible and leave it people who are actually trained and experienced in those particular areas.
Defunding the police suggests taking away cash from what many believe are bloated budgets and reinvest in social services. The problem with that is that you would still need police to respond to emergencies for an initial assessment, but with less resources or manpower to do so. And when people with less than good intentions know there are less police, they’ll test their luck. I have seen this first hand where I live. Seattle’s only seen a small sample.
I believe baseball and other professional sports can play a major, positive role in all of this. They could serves as ambassadors to promote the necessary changes (whatever they may be) and encourage the community to embrace them. They sent a strong message last night and I hope to see more moving forward.
Seriously Stevemotivateir?
Every single discussion about defunding the police states that one massive reason for doing so is to be able to shift the responsibility for many forms of community interaction and service away from armed police with varying levels of training and towards trained and empowered professionals.
Besides enforcing existing racial and class hierarchies and protecting private property, the police are generally really bad at all of the things we ask of them. Some of this is because we have increasingly dumped more and more of our social issues and challenges on the police, and some of this is because the police have come to see themselves more as an occupying force than as members of the community.
Some of the problems actually derive from police training. After 2001. They started distributing military vehicles and munitions to towns and cities of all sizes. (Did you see the tanks Kenosha police are driving to enforce curfews?) They also brought in Israeli trainers who are used to assuming every dark skinned person is a suicide bomber, and taught our police this brand of paranoia and proactive state violence. And The Supreme Court, via immunity rulings, have created a standard by which police are almost impossible to prosecute, no matter how gratuitous their violence.
Every single discussion about defunding the police states that one massive reason for doing so is to be able to shift the responsibility for many forms of community interaction and service away from armed police with varying levels of training and towards trained and empowered professionals.
Who said anything about arming specialists?
Look, there isn’t a cookie-cutter solution that will work for every single community. But various changes can be made including a break away from the image and perception of the traditional police officer.
Some of the problems actually derive from police training.
Yep. There needs to be a complete overhaul, regardless of how they choose to fund police departments nation-wide.