First run at thenation.com.
"If you are upset with Arizona's immigrant laws, please don't take it out on Major League Baseball! Sports and politics do not mix!" With a near military discipline, this had been the message pushed by much of the sports media in conjunction with the Arizona Republican party. The aim has been to head-off any notion of boycotting the Arizona Diamondbacks or calling for the 2011 All Star game to be removed from their home at Chase Field in Phoenix. Governor Jan Brewer was given a page on espn.com to say that boycott campaigns aimed at sports are "inappropriate and misguided." Diamondbacks executive Derrek Hall parroted the governor, calling protesters "misguided" because "the organization doesn't take political positions."
Team owner and Republican Party bankroller Ken Kendrick was shaken enough to release a statement saying that he personally "opposes" the bill.
There is one problem with this public relations fusillade: it's based on a fundamental lie. Ken Kendrick is showing through his actions that he not only supports this bill, he is using his position as Diamondback team owner to do it.
On May 20th, the Nation has learned, Ken Kendrick is holding a private fundraiser inside his owners box at Chase Field for SB 1070 supporter State Senator Jonathan Paton. The fundraiser will be taking place during the D-backs game against the San Francisco Giants. Paton is attempting to make the leap from the state house to the US Congress, and he is depending upon the deep pockets of Kendrick to make it happen.
Leave aside for a moment the ethical and perhaps legal ramifications that Ken Kendrick is using a stadium built with $250 million in public dollars to raise money for his pet candidates. The fact is that while Kendrick publicly distances himself from the bill, he is using the home of the supposedly "apolitical" Diamondbacks organization as a fund raising center for SB 1070 supporting politicians. As Paton says on his campaign website, "We need to secure the border, and we need to secure it now. That's why I voted for SB 1070, and that's why I urge the governor to sign it."
Jim Nintzel reported in the Tucson Weekly, "boasting that he voted for it [SB 1070] before he resigned from the state Senate to [run for Congress].....Paton said that complaints about racial profiling have been overblown."
Paton has also received full-throated support from the author of SB 1070, State Senator Russell Pearce. In an open letter, Pearce wrote glowingly of Paton, "I have served with Senator Jonathan Paton for the last five years in the Legislature. During that time he has voted for every single anti-illegal immigration bill I have sponsored...He has done this despite pressure from the open borders crowd...He opposes amnesty or any path to citizenship for those illegally in the United States...I am proud to have worked with him and know him to be a solid patriot. I believe he will make a great Congressman for Southern Arizona, a Congressman we can all be proud of."
Pearce himself has been under national scrutiny recently because of his disturbingly casual connections to white supremacist organizations. As Rachel Maddow highlighted on her show [7], Pearce has been photographed hugging Neo-Nazi leader J.T. Ready. He also received unwanted attention by forwarding online articles written by the Nazi organization the National Alliance.
Jonathan Paton trumpets the support he receives from Russell Pearce. This is who Jonathan Paton is. This is who Ken Kendrick is using his publicly-funded stadium to support.
Favianna Rodriguez, co-founder of Presente.org, which is a co-founder of the All Star Game boycott campaign MoveTheGame.org, said to me, "Latinos and their allies across the country are targeting Major League Baseball to show that laws like SB 1070 will have dire economic consequences. Mr. Kendrick's continued support of the politicians behind SB 1070 will only further inspire that movement."
There is only one conclusion. The Arizona Diamondbacks should continue to be boycotted and protested until Ken Kendrick stops supporting these politicians and using his publicly funded stadium to do so. The All Star game should be moved, and anyone who says that sports and politics don't mix, should first aim that cliche in the direction of the Arizona Diamondbacks owner's box. Keep the protests going. Keep calling to have the All Star game moved. Any other strategy would truly be "misguided."
Dave Zirin is the author of the forthcoming Bad Sports: How Owners are Ruining the Games we Love (Scribner). Receive his column every week by emailing dave@edgeofsports.com. Contact him at edgeofsports@gmail.com.
Follow Dave Zirin on Twitter: www.twitter.com/edgeofsports
http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/05/19/phoenix.drug.kidnappings/
TYhe country has been up in arms for a while on this issue. The Feds, that means both parties, refuse to deal with it. It now falls to the states. The violence has gotten much more out of hand in recent years, hence the states move.
Dave Zirlan is merely exposing the hypocracy of Ken Kendrick speaking out of both sides of his mouth. It is impossible to simultaneously "personally" against a law while funding the people who make and defend the law. Ken Kendrick is a disingenuous and less than honorable individual.
How about this idea: leave baseball out of it and make your case for not controlling our border based on facts, not major league baseball teams which you think should be boycotted. Make your case, state your solution to the problem. Boycotting a baseball team is not leadership and it's not a solution--it's a diversion from the real issue by using a scapegoat.
Most of us would not be surprised at ownership, but did you know that a survey in the last few years showed that 90% of white baseball players either support or are sympathetic with the GOP?
And there is a screaming, SCREAMING community that hate SB1070,(good lord, "show me your papers" - Really? REALLY?)
I am as Blue as BLUE can be. The Reagan I-9 and the 2-yr ago AZ law that requires ALL AZ employers to follow the e-Verify Law - current emp sancions, which has had one sanction (2 days, against a Subway-what a joke). To negate NAFTA and Clinton's involvement (which he so readily recetly admitted in Haiti) and the Mexican farmer's instantaneous loss of livelihood over corn subsidies, and afterwords their exodus to the maquiadoras on the border which then closed down for even CHEAPER labor/environ rates in Asia - OMG, what a CLUSTERFUCK. You have all exhausted me in your blanket hatred. We understand you, but IT'S SO COMPLICATED.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/mcclatchy/20100428/wl_mcclatchy/3490580;_ylt=AthCvFBsaH2mEnamxe1dyLlvaA8F;_ylu=X3oDMTJrZWpzdWE1BGFzc2V0A21jY2xhdGNoeS8yMDEwMDQyOC8zNDkwNTgwBHBvcwMzMARzZWMDeW5fYXJ0aWNsZV9zdW1tYXJ5X2xpc3QEc2xrAzZvdXRvZjEwbWlncg