Red Sox and Blue Voters

Blue State voters: get behind your Team of Destiny in the baseball playoffs, the Boston Red Sox. Rooting for the Sox this year is akin to recycling, giving to Oxfam, and hoarding old "No Nukes" buttons in your desk drawer. Joining Red Sox Nation is no longer merely an expression of fandom; it is a moral imperative.

If you're from Cleveland, Colorado, or Arizona, you get a free pass. But otherwise, any person with a shred of progressive sensibility should be ordering their replica David Ortiz jersey.

First of all, look at our competition in the American League Championship series, the Cleveland Indians. All you need to know is that their team logo trades on the worst kind of stereotypes of native people. A smiling, shifty-eyed, crooked-nose icon with dark red skin and a feather sprouting from his head is probably the most racist logo in all of sport. The mascot has a name: "Chief Wahoo." Native American groups and the NAACP have protested in the past, but the team has refused to change the logo.

The Team of Destiny, however, has named itself after hosiery. Nothing offensive there.

Once we win the American League, the Red Sox will face either the Colorado Rockies, the hottest team in baseball, or the Arizona Diamondbacks.

If the Red Sox are the team of blue state voters, the Rockies have more than a bit of red state in their blood. The team plays in Coors Field, and the brewer owns a chunk of the team. I remember when boycotting the beer was fashionable among the progressive intelligentsia because of the Coors family's support for right-wing efforts against LGBT rights and affirmative action. The boycott has faded, and not because of the allure of the Silver Bullet. Now the Coors family uses a cover group, the Castle Rock Foundation, to fund conservative groups like the Heritage Foundation and the Federalist Society.

There's more reason to dislike the Rockies. Another chunk of the team is owned by Fox Sports Net, a fair and balanced subsidiary of Fox Entertainment.

But there is only one thing you need to know to turn against the Rockies forever. The controlling ownership is held by Charles Monfort, who in a recent list of his favorite songs included, at number three, John Ashcroft's "Let the Eagle Soar." Really. Apparently he likes to "pump it up" in the clubhouse before games. If you need proof of divine grace, that's it. It is a miracle the team doesn't boot every pre-game meal.

As for the overachieving Diamondbacks, it is harder to find a reason to dislike them. The team's principal owner looks to be a decent, self-made sort from West Virginia who even helped an employee-owned bank get off the ground. But the team does play in Arizona, and when I think of Arizona I think of John McCain. And that makes me think of The Surge. Why spend a World Series thinking of that?

The Red Sox are worthy of your support. I realize that we have our black marks - the Sox were the last major league team to integrate and ace Curt Schilling famously campaigned for Bush in 2004. But the ownership campaigned for Dems, and the team is now a polyglot. Our best players are from the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Japan, and around the U.S. Our excellent first baseman is a Jew of Romanian descent with a Greek name -- Youkilis.

And when we play the Indians, we have a chance to watch sweet, sweet irony. Our best young prospect is 24-year old Jacoby Ellsbury, who should be seeing action in the outfield as a backup. He's lightning fast. Earlier this year he scored a run on a wild pitch, which is no big deal except that he started the play on second base.

The sweet irony is that he is of Navajo descent, the first ever in the major leagues. Maybe he will steal a base, beat out an infield grounder, or rob an Indians player of a double in the gap. And I want you to be cheering with me when he wipes that silly grin off Chief Wahoo's face.

Kent Greenfield is a law professor at Boston College. He can be reached at [e-mail].

Comments

[kittycago]

I am the bluest of blue voters and I really dislke the red sox.Does this mean I have to vote red now?

[Quaoar]

The Red Sox fans are in some ways worse than the Yankees fans. They whine about the Yankees payroll yet have one that is almost as obscene compared with the rest of the league. And Curt Schilling is an obnoxious openly conservative Christian Bush supporter. How Blue-State is that?

Massachusetts had Republican Governors between 1992 and 2006 so they're not a confirmed Blue State. Although Massachusetts now has a Democratic Governor, so do Arizona, Colorado, and Ohio.

The Red Sox and Boston are a lot less "blue state" than you would have us believe.

[clevelandchick]

The Indians were named in honor of the first Native American in the league Soc Alexis and you know that. So Jacoby Ellsbury can also mull that fact when he's facing our team.

Boston isn't the only team with a multi-cultural line-up, the whole league is. What about our up-and-comer Asdrul Cabrera? His relatives didn't exactly come over on the Mayflower.

The offensive logo was designed back in less p.c. times and most folks I know won't wear Wahoo. The Indians mascot is actually some purple fuzzy goofy alien creature named Slider so unless you find Sesame Street rejects politically incorrect I'd lighten up on the Cleveland team is racist line. They need to get rid of Wahoo and eventually they will - when all the old codgers who can't let go of the past kick the bucket.

And Cleveland is brimming with blue voters, Cuyahoga County went 93% for John Kerry in 2004. We've got a Dem mayor and city council. Ohio also has a Dem governor and kicked out Republican Mike DeWhine in favor of Democrat Sherrod Brown.

Look out Boston...not only are we going to take the ALCS - someday we just may take your 'Bluest State Crown' away too.

Finally the BEST reason to root for Cleveland, our team has the lowest payroll in the league and has made it this far with a heck of a lot less than Boston. Standing up for the little guy is the quintessential Democratic thing to do.

[daveman]

Cleveland Chick: You are wrong about the honor thing see the following page that exposes the Cleveland Baseball Team's myth about their names origins:

http://www.committee500years.com/

which documents that it is a complete fiction to believe that this name has anything to do with honor.

[Kundera]

So I guess you root against the Colts coached by Tony Dungy?

Many athletes are religious and conservative and I guess you always rooted against them:
Jim Bunning, Steve Largent, Jack Kemp, Lynn Swann, Roger Staubach......and on and on......

yes Bill Bradley is the exception that proves the rule.

[Henry]

Oh...by the way here is the link for team salaries for 2007. Yer Sox and yer Yanks seem to be the leaders of the pack.

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/teams/salaries?team=cle

[SamanthaJaneSalem]

Keith Olbermann is a Yankee fan. The Red Sox fans booed John Kerry. The Yankee fans booed Rudy Giuliani. The Sox are red, the Yanks are blue (very blue this October). And if any neocon has the dream of an all-white America, he need look no farther than the stands at Fenway Park. Yankee Stadium always shows more diversity, even with the rich fat cat Republicans sitting behind home plate.

That being said, the very insightful Dave Zirin of The Nation magazine wrote earlier this year about the Christian conservative influence on the Colorado Rockies, and asked if it's more important for them to play winning baseball or only hire and sign "good Christians." Well, whatever they did, it worked, and an atheist like myself is big enough to say: good for them.

(Oh, and Joba Chamberlain is a Native American and he rules).

[Henry]

It may all be patronizing symbolizm to you but most Americans will root for the underdog. We're all happy to see the Yanks gone.
Have you looked at the payrolls? Done the runs-scored/payroll dollar paid relationship between winners and losers?

[Kundera]

before big payrolls, before free agency, before Steinbrenner, the Yankees were hated.
So don't give me this crap.

Yankees have always been the best and they are hated.
just like the USA.

[Kundera]

Before big payrolls and free agency and George Steinbrenner, the Yankees were hated.
Why? Because they are the best. 20's to present day...

so stop with this usual whine of hating the Yanks because of big payroll. You simply hate them because they are the best.

Just like the USA is hated because we are the best.

[Alvin4NY]

They are also spoiled, selfish, and they love to brag about their accomplishments in the 1920's. For 2007 anyway, their Ooooooouuuuttttttt......