Sports Heroes

Here. Had a post on this yesterday but closed the browser prematurely. Oh well. Snippet:

Given a chance to take part in the 2011 All-Star game at Arizona, Ozzie Guillen insists he won't go.

"I wouldn't do it," the Chicago White Sox manager said Friday. "As a Latin American, it's natural that I have to support our own."

Guillen joined a growing chorus of opposition to Arizona's new law that empowers police to determine a person's immigration status. The state is home to all four major team sports, hosts half the clubs in spring training and holds top events in NASCAR, golf and tennis.

The Major League Baseball players' union issued a statement condemning the law. A congressman whose district includes Yankee Stadium wrote a letter to baseball commissioner Bud Selig urging him to pull the All-Star game from Phoenix. The World Boxing Council took a step to limit fights in Arizona.

"It's a bad thing," said Baltimore shortstop Cesar Izturis, born in Venezuela. "Now they're going to go after everybody, not just the people behind the wall. Now they're going to come out on the street. What if you're walking on the street with your family and kids? They're going to go after you."

More than one-quarter of big leaguers on opening-day rosters were born outside the 50 states, most of them from Hispanic descent.

Read more: http://www.thenewstribune.com/2010/04/30/1169491/mlb-players-union-opposes-arizona.html?source=rss#ixzz0n5iG7VoI

Jackie Robinson made a big statement and endured a lot when he broke the baseball color barrier. What a lot of people don't know is that African Americans helped change the venue for an AFL all star game from blatantly discriminatory New Orleans to Texas back in 1965:

As the black athletes made it clear that they were heading home, league officials and the game organizers had a decision to make. Would the game go on without the nearly two dozen players who walked out? That question was soon answered when, in a show of support and sympathy for their cause, white players such as Hall of Fame Tackle Ron Mix of the San Diego Chargers decided a statement was needed.

What I'd like to see is some African Americans (and hell, white folk) joining a potential boycott. Legalizing racial profiling is something African Americans should be concerned about as many are all too familiar with it on a personal basis. Its humiliating and ugly.

On ESPN radio (yeah, I listen to baseball, then sports talk when I'm working), I heard an ex-player saying that athletes are used to being screwed for political reasons, Olympic boycotts, blacklists, segregation, sexism, the lists go on and on. Look at everything that has gone on in golf in the last months and years.

Anyway, his point was that all of these things are usually completely out of the control of the players. But this Suns move was something that the players themselves voted on and approved. It's what THEY wanted. Likewise, they are getting support from their opponents, management and throughout the league.

They aren't pawns in this: it is what they want to do.

Bravo.