The Silencing of Carlos Delgado (employee 21)

[donsu]

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20051219/zirin

Sometimes sports mirrors politics with such morbid accuracy you don't know whether to laugh, cry or hide in the basement. Just as the Bush Administration shows its commitment to democracy by operating secret offshore gulags and buying favorable news coverage in Iraq, the New York Mets have made it clear to new player Carlos Delgado that freedom of speech stops once the blue and orange uniform--their brand--is affixed to his body.

For the last two years, Delgado chose to follow the steps of his personal hero, Roberto Clemente, the Pittsburgh Pirates great and the first Latino elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame, and use his athletic platform to speak out for social justice. Clemente blazed a trail for generations of Latino ball players by standing up for the poor of Latin America and never accepting being treated as anything less than human. Delgado's contribution to this tradition of pride in the face of conformity was to refuse to stand for the singing of "God Bless America" during the seventh-inning stretch. This was his act of resistance to the war in Iraq. "I think it's the stupidest war ever. Who are you fighting against? You're just getting ambushed now," Delgado told the Toronto Star in 2004. "We have more people dead now, after the war, than during the war. You've been looking for weapons of mass destruction. Where are they at? You've been looking for over a year. Can't find them. I don't support that. I don't support what they do. I think it's just stupid."

-snip-

But now, Mets' management is pushing Delgado back into the mold. The shame of this is that despite a guaranteed contract and support in the streets, Delgado isn't pushing back. He said at the November 28 press conference announcing his trade to the Mets from the Florida Marlins, "The Mets have a policy that everybody should stand for 'God Bless America' and I will be there. I will not cause any distractions to the ballclub.... Just call me Employee Number 21." And we saw him grin and bear it when Jeff Wilpon, son of Mets CEO and owner Fred Wilpon, said, "He's going to have his own personal views, which he's going to keep to himself."

-snip-

Ironically, one of the parts of the press conference that was genuinely touching was Delgado's thrill at finally being able to wear a jersey with the number 21 of his hero, the great Roberto Clemente. When it came to political principle, Clemente was a giant who never backed down in the face of bigotry: He lost his life in a 1972 plane crash as he was delivering aid to earthquake-ravaged Nicaragua. To Clemente, the Wilpons of the world were little more than mosquitos buzzing in his ears. Delgado could have been our Clemente. Instead, to use his own words, he is just Employee Number 21.
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is there a way we can help Delgado become unsilenced? like remaining in our seats for God Bless America.

[RagingInMiami]

1. They could silence him

But we all know where he stands