In New York, a rally is planned tonight outside Citi Field in Queens where baseball’s Arizona Diamondbacks will play the New York Mets. Demonstrations have already taken place outside ball parks in cities across the country, demanding that baseball owners move the 2011 All Star Game out of Arizona. The owners will have to make their decision carefully considering that 30 percent of its players are Latinos. Nation sports editor and Bad Sports author Dave Zirin tells Democracy Now! that this is “not exactly news you’re gonna hear on SportsCenter.” These demonstrations are so important because “what they’ve allowed people to do is nationalize the issue and have it not be just an Arizona issue.”
Ken Kendrick, owner of the Arizona Diamondbacks, holds fundraisers for Arizona’s SB 1070 legislation supporting politicians in the owner’s box of what is a publicly-funded stadium in Arizona. “This is political money laundering and it happens in our cities around the country,” says Zirin. “We are underwriting right wing politicians and right wing politics through sports.” A couple players from the Diamondbacks have come out and spoken against SB 1070, only to be shut down very quickly by team management and Major League Baseball itself. Within hours of the law being passed, 18 baseball players came out against the Arizona Law, but now they’re being pressured to keep their opinions to themselves.
—Melanie Breault
