Politics Begets Politics

On the left, Charlie Pierce is entirely correct, though I'd go further.

I’d like to thank MLB for exercising its longtime power for turning molehills into mountains, and giving the no-life
Right something else to scream about. Let them wear what they want. https://t.co/kTrfD5xLiX

— Charles P. Pierce (@CharlesPPierce) June 16, 2026

 

As The Guardian explained    

Major League Baseball has issued a statement critical of players who wrote Bible verses on their Pride Night hats after an incident at a San Francisco Giants game last week.

MLB celebrates Pride month during June and most teams choose a home game to acknowledge the LGBTQ community and its baseball fans. The Giants, who are based in a city with a large LGBTQ population, often make an extra effort.

However, those efforts often clash with the league’s players, many of whom come from conservative, religious backgrounds. During Friday’s game against the Chicago Cubs, Giants pitchers Landen Roupp and JT Brubaker wrote Bible verses on their Pride caps. Another Giants pitcher, Sam Hentges, chose not to wear the cap at all.

On Monday, MLB issued a statement on the subject. “The writing on the cap violates our rules, and consistent with normal practice, we have warned the players about future violations,” said MLB chief communications officer Pat Courtney.

Roupp wrote “Gen 9:12-16” on his cap. The verse contains a reference to a rainbow, one of the symbols of Pride. The verse reads in part: “Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the Earth.”

Many- disproportionately so- major league players do come from conservative, religious backgrounds. However, one does not have to have been raised in a conservative and Christian milieu to realize that Major League Baseball is wrong.  Ironically, right-wing Rob Schneider, who supports the players, doesn't seem to understand this. "Christians," he tweeted, "cannot be made to wear anything that is against their deeply held religious beliefs" and in another tweet, promised to pay any fines issued and maintained "MLB is ANTI-CHRISTIAN".  

The league has since issued a warning to the three pitchers and the Giants' organization has released a cryptic statement. Republican senator Josh Hawley of Missouri has blasted an "apparent pattern o fdiscriminating against Christians while promoting left-wing ideologies."

As Pierce recognizes, this does give "the Right something else to scream about." And that is supposed anti-Christian bias which, given the content of Genesis 9:12-16, is ironic because the passage in question is theistic, not specifically Christian. Genesis is the first chapter of the Old Testament and is generally believed to have been authored by Moses, a Jew. It is the first of the first five books of The Bible, known as the Pentateuch. Jews, as well as Christians, and Muslims (sort of) are called upon to believe in the Old Testament. Genesis 9:12-16 reads

And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come:  I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth.  Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds,  I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life. Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth.”

But this chain of events was not started by the three players. They did not arbitrarily cite the passage. Major League Baseball sponsors a Pride month- a political act- during the month of June. In turn, the Giants organization decides how to celebrate it- a political act. In response, the players promoted a passage from Scripture which- again ironically- does not pertain in any way to sexual or gender orientation or practice. Pride month advocacy is imposed upon all of the players, and three responded respectfully.

Management/ownership of each baseball team decides for itself how to promote Pride month. Only one, the Texas Rangers, does nothing, similar to what each team does for Heterosexual Month. (No, that does not exist.) That's fine; politics has always been a part of sports and any effort to eliminate it probably would be futile and probably mistaken.

One need not be a card-carrying member, nor be sympathetic to, the Christian right to want to draw attention to the ninth chapter of Genesis. Nor does a professional athlete have to be partial to that specific passage to be pleased that his employer is boosting Pride Month.  Major League Baseball decided to go all in on the cause and and shouldn't be surprised if a few individuals among its 780 players have a mind of their own.

 

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The Giants Win The World Series! The Giants Win The World Series!

Rush Limbaugh admits he is not always right. But he also boasts, again and again, that he's almost always right, as he did on April 22, 2009 in this conversation:

RUSH: John, Charlotte, North Carolina, glad to have you, sir, welcome.

CALLER: Hey, Charlotte dittos and wax awe dittos and all the dittos in between, Rush.

RUSH: Thank you, sir.

CALLER: Got a question for you real quick.

RUSH: Yes, sir.

CALLER: Your accuracy rating as stated yesterday or the day before, 99.1.

RUSH: No, no. Documented now to be almost always right 99.

CALLER: Okay. When you started, obviously before you had an opinion, it was a hundred percent. What were you wrong to drop it?

RUSH: It's so long ago. You know, it wasn't just one giant thing. I mean a bunch of small, insignificant things. But they still count if they're offered as opinions. And they're just small, insignificant things that happened over the years. I mean my opinions have been audited since 1988. And so if you want to say, okay, I started out a hundred percent right, why was it that I didn't start out at zero?

CALLER: Well, I guess it's all how you look at it from a math point of view.

Lest you think he was joking about being right approximately 1% less often than God, note that Limbaugh immediately afterward blamed his staff for the 1% when he remarked

Well, you're an optimist. I started out never being wrong because I'd never expressed an opinion. Some would say you start out never being right. (laughing) So I've gone from 100 to 99%. One of the primary penalties that I suffered in my opinion audit -- and it was just in the past two years -- I took the fall for just horrendous mistakes and errors by the staff. I forget, there were two things I was totally misinformed about, I trusted the staff, and when I announced those things, I was wrong. These were factual things. But I then got penalized for expressing my opinion that it was my fault, when it wasn't, it was the staff's. And there was another one. I think perhaps these two, taking the fall for the staff and then saying it was my fault when it wasn't, and I predicted Hillary Clinton would not run for the Senate in New York, all by myself. I didn't have any help from the staff. In fact, the staff argued with me about that, everybody else did. But those two things probably are largely responsible for my opinion audit being only 99%. That's a great question out there, John, it's a great Open Line Friday on Wednesday question.

This was not a one-off deal; Rush frequently reiterates that he is certified to have been right 99% of the time.

A test of his theory recently transpired when the former Royals employee, on October 16 as the World Series was about to begin, predicted

When I worked there, I'll just share with you a little thing here and then, Sarah, I have to move on.  But when I worked there, you know, every year you hope you make the playoffs 'cause there's nothing better. The postseason is fun, the excitement, the place is packed, the town's buzzing, it's the best.  During a season, you see things -- I did.  I saw plays, late-game heroics, home runs that made me think this is the season of destiny, turning an unlikely double play in the ninth inning in Texas, I'll never forget one of those. I got on the phone, when I still used the phone back then, and I said, "This is the year. This is our year. We're gonna make it. Did you see that play?"

I saw so many of those things this season with the Royals, it made me say, even during the playoffs, that this team is destined.  And, so far, it's proven out.  So the World Series opens Tuesday night in Kansas City at Kauffman Stadium.

So how did that work out, big guy?

Not so well. It seems this symbol of the "Left Coast," the city of Nancy Pelosi  and lots of Democrats, has something to celebrate as the San Francisco Democrats defeated that team of destiny in game 7 of the World Series (video from Fox, which televised it).   

LImbaugh would have hailed himself had his Kansas City Royals won. He ought either to eat crow, which is possible, given the insignificance of the event compared to passage of the Affordable Care Act, Barack Obama's victory dealing with Syria, or the far superior performance on the economy by President Obama than by Saint Reagan.   Or he could acknowledge that baseball is simply a sport and therefore is not real life.

That he won't do, and the defeat of the Royals stands as one of the innumerable things that Rush Limbaugh has been wrong about- and therefore a great, joyous event.

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Priorities Skewed, And Not

Every child in public school is introduced to the United States Constitution, including Article IV, Section 2.  Perhaps you remember that it begins "The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States, including the right to an Academy Award."

Weren't you aware of that provision?   Neither was I until directed to it by co-chairperson Amy Pascal of Sony Pictures Entertainment.

Sony Pictures Entertainment is the production/distribution company for Zero Dark Thirty, nominated for five Academy Awards, including best movie.   By all accounts it is an impressive movie but Martin Sheen and Ed Asner, two actors accustomed to liberal advocacy, have criticized the film.  And deciding that principle trumps artistry, actor David Clennon has announced

I firmly believe that the film Zero Dark Thirty promotes the acceptance of the crime of torture, as a legitimate weapon in America's so-called war on terror. In that belief, following my conscience, I will not vote for Zero Dark Thirty in any category...I cannot vote for a film that makes heroes of Americans who commit the crime of torture.

Appearing on Cenk Uygur's The Young Turks, former CIA operative Lindsay Moran explains

It is an amazing movie, but very revealing about the entire hunt for Osama bin Laden.   It contains a lot of disturbing scenes of detainees being tortured...  What I find ironic is the government claiming that this is classified information and would put Americans at risk at the very same time that two Hollywood filmmakers were given unprecedented access to the CIA -- basically made an infomercial about CIA interrogation.

But exploding in righteous indignation, SONY President Pascal thundered

To not include that part of history would have been irresponsible and inaccurate. We fully support Kathryn Bigelow and [screenwriter] Mark Boal and stand behind this extraordinary movie. We are outraged that any responsible member of the Academy would use their voting status in AMPAS as a platform to advance their own political agenda.

Competing values sometimes make for a difficult ethical decision.  Not this one.

Barry Bonds, who (along with other baseball greats) this month received far fewer votes than necessary for induction into the Hall of Fame, is a difficult ethical decision.  Bonds was front and center of the steroid era who, as Sports Illustrated put it in 2006, took "a wide array of performance-enhancing drugs over at least five seasons in a massive doping regimen that grew more sophisticated as the years went on."  He also was inarguably the best player of his generation and arguably the best player ever, a sensational outfielder for the Pittsburgh Pirates and San Francisco Giants before he even began 'doping.'

So go ahead- ponder away about whether Bonds and the other players (all rejected) up for the Hall should have been denied admission for 2013.  But the argument of Amy Pascal about another sector of the entertainment field is askew and just plain hypocritical.

Pascal criticizes Clennon on two fronts:  Zero Dark Thirty is "extraordinary" and the actor/voter merely is "advanc(ing) their own political agenda."   The first is probably true but subjective, and irrelevant.  It is a zero sum game, with one film winning and the others losing in each category, and presumably each of the films merits a place on the ballot.

And advancing one's own political agenda?   This would hardly be the first time political considerations have entered into nominations or voting for awards in the industry.   Hollywood, further, is rife with politics and would-be politicians.  Perhaps, someday, there will even be an actor who goes on to become a big-state governor and two-term U.S. President.  Nah.  That'll never happen.

But the controlling factor is whether Zero Dark Thirty a political movie.   This is not A Hard Day's Night or even North by Northwest.  It is a movie about Osama binLaden, and one which strongly implies torture is efficacious, a highly controversial position.  It serves, intentionally or otherwise, as propaganda for the U.S. government and its approach to terrorism and whose screenwriter and director apparently benefited from a curious relationship with the C.I.A.

It's good entertainment, though, and is making lots of money for lots of people.  And that, apparently, is all which matters for people who embody Hollywood's sense of entitlement.  There is no Constitutional right to win an Academy Award.   Amy Pascal may not understand that, but at least a few people, David Clennon among them, do.



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Home Town Hero

But until they do, let us be aware that while they preach the supremacy of the state, declare its omnipotence over individual man, and predict its eventual domination of all peoples on the Earth, they are the focus of evil in the modern world.

Common wisdom had it that President Ronald Reagan, delivering a speech in Orlando, Florida to the National Association of Evangelicals in 1983, was describing the Soviet Union. We since have learned that he was referring to the New York Yankees, who have swept the Minnesota Twins in the American League divisional playoff series, with a little help from umpire Phil Cuzzi, who

knows what you were thinking. He was standing right there, barely 10 feet away, with an unobstructed view. He saw the ball curve down the left-field line and bounce. He is an umpire with decades of experience, working at the highest level in his sport.

How the heck did he miss that call?!

“Unless you umpire, you can’t possibly understand,” Cuzzi told The Star-Ledger in a phone interview Saturday night. “It happens. It happens at the worst possible time. And it happened to me....

He is not making excuses for what happened in the 11th inning of the Yankees’ 4-3 victory in Game 2. He missed the call. He had no idea until after the game, when he arrived back at the umpire’s room and a supervisor was waiting for the crew. He watched the replay, just like everyone else, and saw Twins catcher Joe Mauer’s line drive had bounced eight inches fair.

Cuzzi had called it foul, negating a leadoff double, and he spent much of the next 24hours trying to figure out what happened. Part of it, he thinks, was playing an unnatural position — baseball only uses umpires along the outfield foul lines in the postseason and for the All-Star Game.

The temptation, of course, is to assume that Major League Baseball is eager to have the Yankees, who had the best record in baseball this season and (with the N.Y. Mets) play in what is by far the largest media market in the U.S.A., represent the American League in the World Series. And no doubt that is true.

It's much more fun, however, to speculate further about this remarkably bad call in a crucial situation. Where does the 54-year-old Cuzzi, who says no one "on that field.... had a worse night's sleep than I did," hail from?

It might be New England, home to the Yankees' rival, the Boston Red Sox. Or perhaps the ever-growing Southeast, in Florida or perhaps the deep South. Is it the Midwest, maybe the Rust Belt or further down in the rural mid-section of the country? Perhaps it is out west, on the coast, whether California- the largest state of them all- or the Mountain West.

Cuzzi could have been from any of, say 47 states where the Yankees, who play in the borough of the Bronx, are just another baseball team, albeit a great baseball team.

But no. Phil Cuzzi, who played a pivotal role in keeping the New York Yankees from playoff elimination, hails from New Jersey. Northern New Jersey. Specifically, he is a Belleville (approximately 24 miles from the Bronx) native who lives in Nutley, approximately 13 miles from the Bronx.

Don't blame Phil Cuzzi for, intentionally or not, doing a "solid" for the home team. If he can hold down an enviable job, make an egregious error at a critical time and not even face discipline, he should not be pitied, patronized, or ridiculed. Merely envied.