Arizona Diamondbacks in the eye of the boycott storm

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The boycott of all things Arizona has extended to the Arizona Diamondbacks baseball team. From Countdown Thursday, April 29th – Countdown with Keith Olbermann:

(VIDEO) Arizona boycott! Arizona boycott!

OLBERMANN: The cry in Chicago—the symbols, the Arizona Diamondbacks, ironically is the only team in baseball without a prominent Hispanic player.

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OLBERMANN: A baseball fan arrived outside Wrigley Field, Chicago, for this afternoon‘s Cubs game. There he saw evidently to his surprise people protesting the new “show me your papers” law in Arizona. Arizona, where the team the Cubs were to play, the Diamondbacks, are based—where in evident coincidence, the only one of the 30 Major League teams without a potential Hispanic 2010 all-star player or Hispanic future Hall of Famer is the Arizona Diamondbacks.

The fan saw the protest, ripped up his ticket and went home.

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Only about 50 gathering outside Wrigley today, the Diamondbacks beginning a four-game series with the Cubs. The protesters are chanting, “Boycott Arizona,” “Reform, Not Racism,” “Shame on Arizona.”

However, organizers are expecting more than 100,000 at a march in Los Angeles over the weekend. An immigration rights rally in that city in 2006, having drawn half a million participants. This Saturday‘s march is one of 70 May Day protests being planned in cities across the country.

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John Amato at crooksandliars.com is one of the leading proponents of the boycott against the Arizona Diamondbacks, so let him explain in his own words his reasoning. Boycott the Arizona Diamondbacks and all things Jerry Colangelo:

I write about sports quite often on C&L and I haven't targeted a team quite like this before, but if the Diamondbacks owners want to engage in this type of hideous politics then it's time to call them out on it.

As the official Arizona Diamondbacks boycott call states, “In 2010, the National Republican Senatorial Committee’s third highest Contributor was the [executives of the] Arizona Diamondbacks, who gave $121,600; furthermore, they also contributed $129,500, which ranked as the eighteenth highest contribution to the Republican Party Committee.” The team’s big boss, Ken Kendrick, and his family members, E. G. Kendrick Sr. and Randy Kendrick, made contributions to the Republicans totaling a staggering $1,023,527. The Kendricks follow in the footsteps of team founder and former owner Jerry Colangelo. Colangelo, along with other baseball executives and ex-players, launched a group called Battin’ 1000: a national campaign that uses baseball memorabilia to raise funds for a Campus for Life, the largest anti-choice student network in the country. Colangelo was also deputy chair of Bush/Cheney 2004 in Arizona, and his deep pockets created what was called the Presidential Prayer Team—a private evangelical group that claims to have signed up more than 1 million people to drop to their knees and pray daily for Bush.

Under Colangelo, John McCain also owned a piece of the team. The former maverick said before the bill’s passage that he “understood” why it was being passed because “the drivers of cars with illegals in it [that] are intentionally causing accidents on the freeway.”

This is who the Arizona Diamondback executives are. This is the tradition they stand in.

The Diamondbacks’ owners have every right to their politics, and if we policed the political proclivities of every owner’s box there might not be anyone left to root for (except for the Green Bay Packers, who don’t have an owner’s box). But this is different. The law is an open invitation to racial profiling and harassment. The boycott call is coming from inside the state.

If the owners of the Diamondbacks want to underwrite an ugly edge of bigotry, we should raise our collective sporting fists against them. A boycott is also an expression of solidarity with Diamondback players such as Juan Guitterez, Gerardo Parra, and Rodrigo Lopez. They shouldn’t be put in a position where they’re cheered on the playing field and then asked for their papers when the uniform comes off.

The Diamondback people aren't just donating to the Republican Party like most professional sports team owners do—they are helping to create this climate of fear and hate-mongering. It's obscene.

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How long will it be until Arizona players find themselves caught up in the police state that Colangelo and Kendricks have helped bring to the state of Arizona? And I'm only talking baseball players. What about the rest of their pro teams and college teams as well as all the visiting athletes that come in and play in the state of Arizona? Studies show that about 27% of all MLB players are Latino and almost 40% are players of color.

The total population of Major League players of color (39.6 percent) was comprised of Latino (27percent), African‐American (10.2 percent) or Asian (2.4 percent). MLB has been remarkably consistent in terms of the percentage of white players. Between the 1998 and the 2008 seasons, 59‐61 percent of the playershave been white in each season with the exception of 2004 which saw 63 percent of the players being white.

There have been numerous studies done about the numbers of African Americans who are playing Major League Baseball, and included in those studies are fascinating results regarding the rise of the Latino player.

Furthermore, a Latino, Arturo Moreno, owns the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. Two people of color, GM Ken Williams and manager Ozzie Guillen, guided the White Sox to a World Series title in 2005. Omar Minaya, baseball's only Latino GM, and Willie Randolph, one of two African-American managers, guided the Mets to the NL Championship Series last year. And according to MLB, people of color constitute 33 percent of the managerial positions within the minor leagues.

"Baseball is more diverse than ever," said Jimmie Lee Solomon, executive vice president of baseball operations for MLB.

Being diverse and playing baseball in Arizona has now become a hazardous proposition.

UPDATE: The MLB Players Association has now weighed in. MLB players' union opposes Arizona immigration law:

The Major League Baseball players' union says it opposes the new Arizona immigration law.

The union says it's concerned the law could have a negative impact on hundreds of ballplayers and their families.

Union head Michael Weiner says in a statement released Friday that the law could force foreign-born ballplayers to prove their immigration status at any time. As of opening day, more than one-quarter of big league players were born outside the United States.

Weiner says the union hopes the law is repealed or modified. The All-Star game is scheduled to be played in Arizona in 2011.