day 6: kansas city: the negro leagues baseball museum is great but has problems

Yesterday we took our time in the morning, then headed back out to the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, housed in the same building as the American Jazz Museum. 

What was lost and why

Both jazz and Black baseball have some roots in Kansas City, along with many other US cities. Both museums, plus a display in the atrium between the two, emphasize that this neighbourhood -- called "18th & Vine" -- was the centre of a thriving Black community that, in a sense, was destroyed by integration, or at least de-segregation. That is certainly the story of the Negro Leagues, the Black press, and many other Black American institutions. It was the sad, ironic price of the successes of the civil rights movement.

To me, it sometimes seems like the nostalgia for those vibrant days doesn't adequately emphasize why these parallel Black institutions existed: because Black people were not allowed to participate in mainstream American life, and the penalty for attempting to do so -- for defying Jim Crow -- were severe, often fatal, and routinely visited on the entire Black community. No story provides stronger evidence of that than that of our next stop, Tulsa.

I can understand the nostalgia, especially considering how historically Black communities were neglected after de-segregation, with crappy schools and an almost total lack of services. And as a writer, I know that it's never easy to balance a story with "this, but that, too". Here at 18th & Vine, I feel there is too much "this" (it was beautiful then) and not enough "that" (it was unjust, and dangerous, and scary, and hideous).

The Negro Leagues Baseball Museum does a better job of that, since the sole reason for the Leagues' existence was racism. There is a good walk-through what the Negro Leagues were, why and how they developed, who the stars were, who organized and funded the teams, what conditions were like, and so on. But still, it begins with a short overview film (narrated by James Earl Jones), which concludes with something like "then Jackie Robinson made it and everything was grand". Even two more sentences of how long it took to actually integrate, how Black players were shut out of coach and manager positions, or the prejudice they faced in the earlier years, would have helped. You could write that and still end on a hopeful note of steady progress.

Negro Leagues Baseball Museum

The museum itself? Meh. In several places, glass display cases were blocking printed information, many objects on display were not identified at all, information was in the wrong chronological order, terms were not explained. It wasn't a total mess like the Egyptian museum in Cairo, but there were several instances of these missteps. People do love this museum, and I think most people wouldn't notice these things, but a professional organization shouldn't make these errors.

Socialism, feminism, and unionism -- or not

One excellent piece was an entire display, including an excellent short film, highlighting the work of Lester Rodney. Rodney was a sportswriter for the socialist newspaper The Daily Worker. Rodney made the fight to integrate baseball his fight, both in his writing and by organizing. Day after day, year after year, he called out baseball's racism, using many different tools, including pickets and petitions. At one point, he delivered more than 1.5 million signatures of fans to Kenesaw Mountain Landis, the racist commissioner of baseball who (along with racist team owners) was responsible for the ban on Black players continuing as long as it did. Rodney was a hero of the civil rights movement, and he was a socialist. Allan and I were both so happy to see him highlighted. 

There was a section on Black women in baseball, which was great. But did it have to be titled "The Beauty of the Game"?? I was horrified. 

While I'm complaining, would it kill historians to occasionally note the importance of trade unionism in these fights? In the early NLBM displays, there is a general timeline running parallel to the baseball information, to give the viewer a sense of what was happening in the larger country and civil rights movement, concurrent with the Negro Leagues. I was very pleased to see A. Philip Randolph and the Sleeping Car Porters there. But why not identify the first succesful Black-led labour union, or idntify Randolph as a union leader, or even use the word union at all? 

Connie Morgan, a Black, female ballplayer I had never heard of, apparently worked for the AFL-CIO -- which I only learned in a sentence saying she retired from that organization. Was Morgan a labour activist? We don't know, since apparently we don't talk about unions. 

The film in the 18th & Vine exhibit also highlighted the success of Black teachers and waiters, without ever mentioning that thrived through being organized. It highlighted the roles of social clubs and churches in organizing pickets and boycotts, but not the role of Black trade unions.

Gift shops without books!

The NLBM carries only shirts, hoodies, and caps, with a sad, tiny section of books -- a few titles, some copies damaged. The American Jazz Museum did only slightly better, with a nice display of children's books. But considering all the books on jazz that are out there, it still sucked. 

Allan said that on his first-ever visit to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, the gift shop offered a huge section of books. He had no money and literally spent his last dollars on a SABR publication -- even that was there. On his next visit to Cooperstown, when we went together in 1989, there were almost no books. This is very sad. Unforgiveable.

Neither of us wanted anything from the NLBM gift shop. At the AJM gift shop, I bought a great pair of earrings, and a collection of Ralph Ellison's writing on jazz, and Allan found a set of three bookmarks featuring the art of Jean-Michel Basquiat. Allan loves Basquiat and collects art bookmarks from everywhere we travel, so that was perfect.

The carnivore's vacation

After the museum, we spent a long time driving around looking for a grocery store (even with Google Maps) to replenish our supplies, then went back to the apartment so I could rest. We were still deciding which barbecue restaurant to try, but it turned out many had closed for the day or would be closed by the time we got there. 

We ended up at Jack Stack, a local chain. The menu, service, and food were all amazing. I had a combination plate with lamb ribs (I had no idea that such a thing existed in barbecue!) and baby backs; Allan had a combo of burnt ends, sausage, and spare ribs. The beans were rich and molassesy, and slaw was light and tangy. Naturally, half my dinner is in the fridge right now, waiting for my breakfast. But even Allan has leftovers waiting for him, from both Stroud's and barbecue. We also each had a "KC Lemonade," made with lemonade, blackberries, and vodka, a treat for us these days.

When we didn't order dessert, Allan said something about my being tempted by crème brûlée -- and with our check, the server brought us a crème brûlée packaged to go, on the house. Super nice!

I have not yet stubbed a toe

The Airbnb is working better now that I've figured out some of the accessibility issues. We decided to keep our one-night reservation here later in the trip, rather than cancel and book a hotel. We'll probably re-pack so we can bring fewer things down the steep steps.

Today is our day in Kansas City without the jazz and baseball museums. We're planning on seeing some buildings downtown, including the famous library, eating more barbecue, and possibly hearing live music tonight. 

I don't care about art museums unless there's a collection or a specific work or artist I want to see -- in which case I care hugely -- and no city on this trip qualifies. We don't enjoy zoos or aquariums, because animals, and we don't care about science centres. That automatically rules out a lot of sightseeing. But we do enjoy architecture, and walking around cities, and I wanted to make sure we saw a litle of KC.

Also on my list: a drive into Kansas City, Kansas, making this trip three states I had never visited -- Missouri, Oklahoma, and Kansas -- rather than two.

Photos of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum

real heroes for real reasons: female athletes moving the world forward

These days I can't blog about events or issues that are meaningful to me until they're old news -- which of course in today's world can mean only days or weeks past. The upside of my delayed response is an opportunity to use a wider lens and see more connections to develop. This is exactly what happened recently with several events related to women and sport.

Soccer players in Spain

In late August, players on the Women's World Cup champion soccer team refused to take the field until an incident of sexual assault or harassment was properly dealt with.

This was a brilliant and heartening episode for so many reasons. 

*** The majority of the players stood together in solidarity, backed by their union -- the oldest union in professional sport. Even after being threatened with fines and sanctions, most players continued their boycott, described in some media as "open rebellion". (Be still my heart!) 

*** Mainstream media reported this news factually and didn't mock the players. I have no doubt that right-wing media and social went berserk over this -- after all, it was "only" a kiss. But for the mainstream media to treat seriously and factually a nonconsensual kiss on the lips  is a huge change. I noticed as the story played out, the language changed from "unwanted kiss" to "nonconsensual" or "forcible" kiss.

*** Rubiales, who first took the usual tactic of portraying himself as the victim, then apologized, was finally forced to resign. 

Best of all, the players leveraged their spotlight and position of strength to focus on systemic changes. They won changes both symbolic -- the elimination of the term de futbol femenino (women's soccer) from the team's name -- and substantive, with steps that will eventually secure equal pay with the national men's team.

Tennis players in Forest Hills

Equal pay! What a concept. How fitting to see, just after the events in Spain, Billie Jean King celebrated at the US Open. Fifty years ago King won in straight sets to beat Bobby Riggs in the so-called Battle of the Sexes -- still the most-watched in tennis history. King spearheaded the drive to create a women’s professional tennis tour, equal prize money for men and women, and -- most importantly -- the passage of Title IX. The ascendancy of women's professional sports is a direct result of Title IX.

I have never been a tennis fan, but I remember very well the hype around the Battle of the Sexes. A school friend of mine pointed out that before the match, Riggs was touted as a master of a crafty game with lightning reflexes that compensated for his small stature. There was no way he was going to lose to a girl. After the game, he was suddenly "a 55-year-old man who walked like a duck". Commentators acted as if King had taken advantage of Riggs' advanced age.

In the present day, I love that Coco Gauff thanked King for making her US Open prize money possible. King's strength, commitment, willingness to fight -- and frankly, her tough skin -- ushered in a new era for female athletes.

Gymnasts saying no to winning at any cost

In the hypercompetitive world of elite and elite-aspiring sport, athletes routinely ruin their health and risk ending their careers in pursuit of victory. 

In 2004, pitcher (and homophobic asshole) Curt Schilling may have sacrificed his future to lead the Red Sox to victory in game six of the World Series. 

In 2008, Tiger Woods won the US Open while limping and in obvious pain from a badly injured knee. 

USA Gymnast Kerri Strug "heard a snap" and couldn't feel her left leg during her routine in the 1996 summer Olympics, but willed herself to finish, in her quest to secure a gold medal for her team.

These life-altering and potentially career-ending sacrifices are invariably hailed as heroic. Sportswriters and fans marvel at the players' mental toughness and unstinting determination. And those accolades perpetuate a culture where athletes on all levels -- amateurs, average professionals, and champions -- make dangerous choices in the relentless pursuit of the win. We'll never know how many young pitchers blew out their arm and burned their futures by following the advice of coaches who cared only for the short-term win. We'll never know the innumerable examples that must exist in every level of every sport.

Against this backdrop, the choice made by Olympic gymnast Simone Biles in 2020 was perhaps the most heroic of all. Biles chose her health over the win. 

From an essay by former USA gymnast Rachael Denhollander, author of What Is a Girl Worth? My Story of Breaking the Silence and Exposing the Truth About Larry Nassar and USA Gymnastics:

Simone Biles entered the 2020 Olympic Games with a record 25 World Championship medals and four moves so difficult that she alone out of all the world’s gymnasts could perform them.

But what took place on the competition floor made history in a way no one could have expected. On the first event of the games, which were held in July 2021, the athlete, who has an unparalleled ability to flip and twist, suddenly could no longer find herself in the air. Simone had “the twisties” — a complete loss of ability to perceive her body in space. The condition is known to lead to devastating injuries, as it nearly did for her that day. When she returned to the competition floor, it was to put on her warm-ups, give her team a pep talk and withdraw from competition.

I’ve witnessed many incredible moments in athletics, but as I watched from home that day, I knew I was watching a victory that redefined the others: Simone’s decision to value her own safety, on her own terms, above the voracious demands of an abusive and toxic athletic system. It was a moment so many of us had fought for, for so long.

Denhollander herself made an incredibly courageous choice: she came forward to tell how Larry Nassar, the sexual predator and former doctor for USA Gymnastics, had sexually assaulted her. She was the first player to speak out against Nassar. By the time the serial child sexual abuser was sentenced to 175 years in prison, more then 200 gymnasts had spoken out -- including Biles. Denhollander writes: 

We all knew that Mr. Nassar was a symptom of a much deeper problem -- a broken and abusive system that valued money and medals over the health and safety of its athletes.

Simone defied this system with both words and actions. Her choice to value her safety and well-being spoke the truth that human worth is not a prize we might someday earn. Rather, it is intrinsic to our very being.

Two years later, Biles returned to competition with a definitive win. But that future was unknown when she left competition to focus on her own health.

Here's the most important takeaway from this story: professional sports is work, and athletes are workers. 

[Biles's] triumph is so much more than the competitions she is once again winning, because it is laid on the foundation of the courageous choice she made in 2021. That, even more than her peerless athletic prowess, is what is inspiring her fans. And that’s what makes her victory resonate far beyond the sport, beyond any sport.

Professional athletes aren’t the only ones who face overwhelming pressure to perform on someone else’s terms -- to work past the point of what’s healthy, to define ourselves by what we achieve instead of who we truly are. That pressure is so common that it can be hard to remember there’s any other possibility. But it doesn’t have to be this way. 

Many workers have no choice. In the bad old days before labour activism forced basic changes in labour laws -- and in the present day, in much of the world -- workers must risk their health and sometimes their lives in order to keep their jobs. 

Those of us who have the privilege of choice can set the tone for our colleagues, friends, and family. We can set new boundaries for workers by setting them for ourselves. We can put down the phone, walk away from the keyboard. Take a full lunch break. End the workday earlier to spend time with our families, and our selves. Work is part of life, and it can give our lives meaning. But it is not life itself. 

This is as true for sport as it is for any other arena. 

Incidentally, this is also why watching Major League Baseball doesn't mean we support the decisions of the Commissioner or the team owners, why watching World Cup football isn't tacit approval of FIFA. We cheer for the workers, not the bosses.

A New York Times sports columnist sums it up

The Spanish footballers, Coco Grauf, and Simone Biles were on my mind when I read the final "Sports of the Times" column by New York Times writer Kurt Streeter: "How Coco Gauff Embodies the Biggest Story in Sports".

Which brings me back to a subject I considered often here, one embodied by Gauff hitting that backhand passing shot and walking off with a Grand Slam title and a winner’s check for $3 million: the rise of women in sports.

Think of all we have witnessed in this arena over the last three years.

Think of the W.N.B.A., the league’s leading role in the protests of 2020, and its continued strength as an amalgamation of women who are not afraid to challenge the status quo.

Think of the winning fight by the U.S. women’s national soccer team for equal pay, or how female soccer players across the globe and in the N.W.S.L. stood up against harassing, abusive coaches.

Did you see that volleyball game at the University of Nebraska, with 92,000 fans in the stands? Or all those record-breaking, packed-to-the-gills stadiums at the Women’s World Cup, with 75,000 on hand for the recent final in Australia?

Yep, it’s a new era.

Consider March Madness 2023. This was a year when the men’s event sat in the shadow of the women’s side — with its upsets, tension and quality. With the charismatic Angel Reese leading Louisiana State over Iowa for the national title. With Reese, bold and Black, sparking a conversation on race by taunting her white opponent, Caitlin Clark, the sharpshooting player of the year.

Yes, on the court, track, field or wherever they compete, women can be as challenging, ornery, competitive and controversial as men. That needs to be celebrated.

Where will this end? With a few exceptions, tennis being one, it’s hard to imagine women’s sports getting the kind of attention they deserve any time soon.

Who gets the most money, notice and hosannas in youth sports? By and large, boys.

Who runs most teams and controls most media that broadcast and write about the games? By and large, men.

Who runs the companies that provide the sponsorship money? Yeah, primarily men.

Change is coming. But change will take more time. Maybe a few generations more.

The decks remain stacked in favor of guys, but women continue their fight. When it comes to the games we play and love to watch, that’s the biggest story in sports right now.

. . . . 

How perfect that this year’s U.S. Open would frame that story once again. Flushing Meadows was a two-week gala celebration of the 50th anniversary of Billie Jean King’s successful push for equal prize money at the event — a landmark in sports that still stands out for its boldness.

And how fitting that on this golden anniversary — with Serena Williams now retired, with Billie Jean front and center during tributes all tournament long — Gauff would win her first Grand Slam event and do it by flashing the kind of poise that marks her as an heir to the throne.

Thank you, Coco and Serena. Thank you, Billie Jean, and all the other female and male athletes who have gone against the status quo, emerged victorious, and are still in the fight.

I thank Streeter for his excellent and anti-sexist coverage of women's sports. I thank him, too, for his coverage of the racist murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery, and the racist reactions to the upwelling of anger and displays of solidarity that followed.

bill russell, rest in power: a trailblazing activist

Basketball legend Bill Russell died this month at the age of 88. Although I remember his playing days, it's not Russell's incredible and indelible sports record that leads me to honour him. If you're not familiar with Russell's life as a trailblazing activist, this is an excellent history lesson; if you are, it's a heartfelt reminder. 

It's also a reminder of what Russell endured, playing for one of the US's most racist cities. I don't know if things have changed greatly for people of colour in Boston, but when Canadians talk about the US South as if racism was somehow confined there, I always think of Boston.

Among Pro Athletes, Bill Russell Was a Pioneering Activist

Russell marched with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., spoke out against segregation in Boston public schools and backed Muhammad Ali in his opposition to the Vietnam War.

It's easy to remember the shots that Bill Russell blocked or the N.B.A. championships he won. After all, there were so many of each that he is considered one of the greatest basketball players in history, and in some corners, the greatest, period.

But after his nearly nine decades of life, his most consequential legacy has less to do with the sport he dominated than his work off the court. From the time he was a young man to his death at age 88 on Sunday, Russell was a civil rights activist who consistently used his platform as a celebrity athlete to confront racism, no matter whom it alienated or what it did to his public popularity. And he was one of the first to do so.

Now, it is common for athletes across many sports to be outspoken, no doubt inspired by Russell. The N.B.A. players' union encourages its members to be passionate about their politics, especially around social justice. Without Russell's risking his own livelihood and enduring the cruelties he did as a Black player in the segregated Boston of the 1950s and 1960s, athlete activism would look much different today, if it existed at all.

From left: Bill Russell, Muhammad Ali, Jim Brown, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (then Lew Alcindor)

"The blueprint was written by Russell," the Rev. Al Sharpton said in an interview on Sunday. He continued: "It is now trendy on social media to take a stand. He did it when it was not trendy. He set the trend."

Spike Lee, the director and longtime N.B.A. fan, said in a text message, "We are losing so many greats my head is spinning."

Lee said Russell "is right up there with Jackie Robinson as changing the game in sports and activism in the United States of America, and we are all better because of these champions."

Russell, a native of West Monroe, La., was a trailblazer from the moment he set foot on an N.B.A. court.

"My rookie year, in the championship series, I was the only Black player for both teams," Russell once quipped to an audience while accepting an award in Boston. "And see what we did, we showed them diversity works."

Russell marched with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963 in the prime of his playing career (he played for the Celtics from 1956 to 1969). He was invited to sit onstage behind King, but he declined. That same year, Russell offered his public support for demonstrations against segregation in Boston public schools, and addressed Black students taking part in a sit-in.

When the civil rights leader Medgar Evers was assassinated, also in 1963, Russell contacted Evers's older brother, Charles, in Jackson, Miss., and offered his assistance. The elder Evers suggested that Russell run an integrated basketball camp in the Deep South, something that would have been a significant safety risk for Russell. He said yes, and despite the death threats, went through with the camp.

Four years later, when the boxer Muhammad Ali was faced with a torrent of criticism for refusing to fight in the Vietnam War, Russell, the N.F.L. star Jim Brown and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (then known as Lew Alcindor and still playing at U.C.L.A.) gathered in Cleveland and decided to support Ali. This was not a popular stance, not that Russell cared.

Russell wrote immediately afterward that he was envious of Ali.

"He has absolute and sincere faith," Russell wrote for Sports Illustrated. "I'm not worried about Muhammad Ali. He is better equipped than anyone I know to withstand the trials in store for him. What I'm worried about is the rest of us."

Russell's activism made an impact on generations of athletes. That included Spencer Haywood, who played for Russell as a member of the Seattle SuperSonics, whom Russell coached for four seasons. (In 1966, Russell became the first Black coach in the N.B.A.)

Haywood said in an interview on Sunday that he and Russell would often dine at a Seattle restaurant called 13 Coins after road trips, and Russell would regale him with stories about the civil rights movement. During these dinners, Russell lauded the young player's willingness to sue the N.B.A. in 1971 for not allowing players to enter the league until four years after their high school graduation — a case that went to the U.S. Supreme Court and was eventually decided in Haywood's favor.

"He was teaching me because he knew what I had stood up for with my Supreme Court ruling," Haywood said. "And he admired that in me. And I was so overwhelmed by him knowing."

Haywood said his teammates would jokingly refer to Russell as Haywood's "daddy" because of how close they were. Sometimes, Haywood's late-night talks with Russell came with surprising advice about activism.

"He always used to tell me about not getting too carried away because we were in the '70s," Haywood recalled. "He was kind of guiding me, saying: 'Don't go out too far right now because you are a player and you need to play the game. But you've made one stand and you did great in that, but don't go too far.' He was, like, giving me a guardrail."

Russell never feared going too far as a player activist himself. He wasn't deterred by the racist taunts he absorbed at games, or when vandals broke into his home, spray-painted epithets on the wall and left feces on the bed after he moved his family to Reading, Mass. When he tried to move his family to a different house nearby, some residents of the mostly white neighborhood started a petition to keep him out.

"I said then that I wasn't scared of the kind of men who come in the dark of night," Russell wrote for Slam magazine in 2020. "The fact is, I've never found fear to be useful."

He didn't always have the support of his teammates. In 1961, for example, the Celtics traveled to Lexington, Ky., for an exhibition game against the St. Louis Hawks. When the restaurant at the hotel would not serve the team's Black players, Russell led a strike of the game. His white teammates played the game. Bob Cousy, one of Russell's white teammates, told the writer Gary M. Pomerantz decades later for the 2018 book "The Last Pass: Cousy, the Celtics and What Matters in the End" that he was "ashamed" at having taken part in the game. President Barack Obama cited the 1961 story in giving Russell the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011.

"For decades, Bill endured insults and vandalism, but never let it stop him from speaking up for what's right," Obama said in a statement Sunday. "I learned so much from the way he played, the way he coached, and the way he lived his life."

The activism didn't stop as Russell got older. In recent years, Russell has been a public supporter of the Black Lives Matter movement and Colin Kaepernick, the former N.F.L. quarterback who began kneeling during the national anthem to protest police brutality in 2016.

"Bill Russell was a pioneer," Etan Thomas, a former N.B.A. player and political activist, said in a text message Sunday. Thomas said Russell was "an athlete who used his position and platform to stand up for a bigger cause." He added that "he was the type of athlete I wanted to be like when I grew up."

Russell's influence in leading the 1961 strike could be felt in 2020, when the Milwaukee Bucks refused to play a playoff game as a protest of police brutality. On Twitter, Russell wrote that he was "moved by all the N.B.A. players for standing up for what is right." In a piece for The Players' Tribune weeks later, Russell wrote, "Black and Brown people are still fighting for justice, racists still hold the highest offices in the land."

Sharpton pointed to those actions as Russell’s legacy.

"He did it before some of these guys were born," Sharpton said. "And I think that what they need to understand is every time a basketball player or athlete puts a T-shirt on saying something about Trayvon or 'I Am Trayvon' or 'Black Lives Matter' or whatever they want to do — 'Get your knee off my neck!' — they may not know it, but they are doing the Bill Russell."

Sopan Deb is a basketball writer and a contributor to the Culture section. Before joining The Times, he covered Donald J. Trump's presidential campaign for CBS News. He is also a New York-based comedian. @sopandeb

Also: "The Bill Russell I Knew For 60 Years," by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar 

what i'm reading: like other girls: best youth fiction i've read in a long time

A girl wants to play football.

That's all.

Well, not quite all. Mara wants to be herself. And that self wants to play football, among other things. 

Mara isn't trying to make a statement. She doesn't want to be political, and although she knows she's gay, she doesn't want to come out -- not yet, not until she is far away from her hometown.

But when other athletic girls also want to join the football team -- and when one of them is out, and political -- there is no "just". The girls' decisions prove to be a crucible for everyone involved: coaches, football players, siblings, parents, and of course the girls themselves. Many fail, and cause harm. Some rise to the challenge. Everyone is changed by the experience.

Friendship, romance, self-acceptance, identity, sexuality, gender, adult support, adult betrayal, leadership, morality, ethics -- all those themes and more are woven through Like Other Girls. And all through interesting characters, realistic and compelling plot lines, with humour and with passion.

Like Other Girls is one of the most fully realized and well written YAs I have read in many years. Cheers to Britta Lundin! I hope we see many more wonderful books from her.

which side are you on: the unprecedented strike by nba players is a watershed moment for justice

First of all, it's not a boycott. It's a strike. And a wildcat strike to boot.

When the players on the Milwaukee Bucks chose not to play in the NBA playoffs -- joined by their baseball counterparts, the Brewers, with other teams quickly following -- they became part of a tradition that reaches back to Tommie Smith and John Carlos, to Muhammad Ali, to Carlos Delgado, all the way to the present, to Maya Moore and Colin Kaepernick. 

The striking NBA players are part of Black Lives Matter. They are part of the present-day civil rights movement. But they are part of something else, too. They are part of the labour movement.

Professional athletes are workers. 

They may be wealthy -- though all are not as wealthy as the top earners -- but their working life is perilously short, and throughout history, has been awash in exploitation. If some earn huge salaries today, that's because so many people are profiting from their labour. 

Strike vs boycott

So why is this action a strike and not a boycott? 

If NBA fans refused to buy tickets to games, or watch the games on TV, that would be a boycott. 

If fans refused to buy the products advertised during the broadcast of NBA games, that would be a boycott.

When workers refuse to work, that is a strike. 

And when they do so without the direction of their union, when they are not "in a legal strike position," as it is called, that, my friends, is a wildcat strike. 

And if we all did this -- if we joined them -- that would be a general strike.

Why it matters

I've been surprised to see some progressive people shrug off the NBA strike as mere display. It is anything but. 

When people who command media attention are vocal about justice, it is noticed. That is powerful. 

When those same people withhold their labour -- when they "down tools" and walk off the job -- it is exponentially more powerful. 

Everyone is rocked by this action: the NBA, their sponsors, the media, the fans, even people who never watch basketball. It is news. It draws the focus of the entire country -- and a huge portion of the entire world -- to why this action was taken. 

Professional and college athletes' support of the Black Lives Matter movement has been, continues to be, important. Athletes have spoken out, they have worn the t-shirts, they have knelt or been absent during the national anthem. All this matters. 

But with this step -- a strike -- they put their bodies on the line. 

As the shooting of Jacob Blake stunned us, left our hearts sore and broken, the very fact of this strike has made my heart soar with hope.

For important context, you'll want to read Dave Zirin's most recent column: The Milwaukee Bucks and Brewers Strike for Racial Justice.

This op-ed by Kurt Streeter in the New York Times is also good: With Walkouts, a New High Bar for Protests in Sports Is Set.

Zirin, speaking with Democracy Now, calls the players' protest "a challenge to the labor movement as a whole". He writes:

They are posing the question that all great strikes pose—to political people who hate sports and sports fans who hate politics, and to white fans who love them on the court but are oblivious to Black lives when the final whistle is blown—“Which side are you on?”

what i'm reading: ali: a life by jonathan eig

Ali: A Life is an extraordinary book about an extraordinary person. It's an epic page-turner at more than 500 pages. This is simply a fascinating book about an utterly fascinating person.

If Muhammad Ali hadn't existed, you couldn't make him up. No fiction character on this scale would be believable. It would be a cartoon.

The only athlete who comes close is Babe Ruth -- but Babe Ruth never aligned himself with an outlaw counterculture and made shocking pronouncements about the U.S., imperialism, and racism.

Ali was a mass of contradictions. He craved material wealth, yet gave away money as if he had an unlimited supply. He was a self-absorbed egomaniac, but incredibly generous, not only with his money but with himself.

He made one of the most important political statements of his generation, one that had profound consequences to his career, one that inspired countless others to follow his path -- yet he never uttered another political statement in his life, and was spectacularly oblivious to world events.

With his own words and his self-constructed image, Ali intentionally and purposefully fashioned a new image of blackness that shocked and thrilled African Americans and white America alike. Yet after that era, he never uttered a word about any racialized issue again, whether apartheid in South Africa or the police beating of Rodney King.

Ali lived to cultivate his image and to be The Greatest -- but put himself on what must be the longest, saddest, most hideous downslope in professional sports history.

Jonathan Eig brings you all of Ali, the good, the great, the bad, the awful, the crazy, the amazing. Some parts will inspire awe. Some head-shaking disbelief. Some disgust. Eig doesn't shy away from any of it.

* * * * *

Growing up, Ali had learning disabilities, and severe dyslexia. This deficit may have been a source of unusual strength in spatial abilities and timing -- two of his boxing abilities that were almost unparalleled in the sport.

When Ali was a young, up-and-coming fighter, the sportswriter Dick Schaap took Ali (then Clay) to Harlem to meet Sugar Ray Robinson, one of the young Ali's heroes. Robinson could hardly be bothered to look at his fans. Ali vowed that when he was famous, he would never treat fans that way.

It was one promise he made good on. For his entire career, Ali would shake hands and sign autographs and pose for pictures and make himself available to everyone, at any time, with no thought to his own privacy or the value of his time. Here's one of many illustrations.

One day in 1970, a white Philadelphia schoolteacher named Marc Satalof asked his wife if she wanted to go for a drive and see if they could find Ali's new home. . . . Ali was in the living room watching TV with friends. Satalof introduced himself and asked Ali if he would visit his school, Strawberry Mansion Junior High, in an all-black, gang-infested section of North Philly. Ali agreed without hesitation. He showed up on the day he said he would and spoke to several groups of students. When Ali complained he was getting tired, Satalof thought the boxer was politely suggesting he was ready to leave. But Ali said no, he didn't want to quit; he hoped instead to take a short nap and then come back to the school and address the rest of the students. Ali proposed a trip to Satalof's house, which was near the school. While Ali was napping, one of Satalof's friends knocked on the door, checking to see if he was okay, because it was unusual to see Satalof's car in the driveway in the middle of the day. Satalof asked the neighbor to be quiet because Muhammad Ali was sleeping in the next room. The neighbor laughed. If you're cheating on your wife, the neighbor said, don't worry, I won't tell anyone. No, really, Satalof said, it's Muhammad Ali. At that moment, Ali, having heard the conversation, stormed out of the bedroom, throwing air punches and pretending to be mad. After signing an autograph for Satalof's friend, Ali went back to the school and stayed three hours, until every student had a chance to hear him speak and every request for an autographed had been filled.

This book is full of stories like this -- one of the most famous people in the world, being generous and kind, with not a single camera rolling or reporter taking notes. In fact, the 1996 Olympic torch lighting, when the aging Ali, silenced by Parkinson's syndrome, thrilled the world one last time, begins with exactly that kind of generosity.

That's a contradiction, too. Ali had an absolutely insatiable need for attention. In his younger days, his constantly running mouth, especially his political and racial statements, brought loud, sustained booing wherever he went. He loved that. Later, chants of A-LI A-LI A-LI replaced the boos, and he loved that even more. But he didn't seek publicity for his many acts of kindness and generosity.

* * * * *

Ali underwent the most famous name-change and religious conversion in US history. And the media refused to use his chosen name! Think of that. Today that's reserved for Twitter trolls, but then it was the New York Times and CBS. The World Boxing Association stripped Ali of his championship title because of his political views. Only for that and no other reason.

Ali should have been a multi-millionaire many times over, but his talent and celebrity supported a huge entourage, and he was utterly unable to say no to any request, investment scheme, or attempt to exploit him. His trust and unshakable belief in people's good intentions drained millions into other people's pockets. Don King and Herbert Muhammad (son of Elijah Muhammad, the founder of Nation of Islam) both enriched themselves massively at Ali's expense. Ali was childlike in his naivete, and remained that way all his life.

After Ali reaches the pinnacle of his fighting career, and begins an impossibly long downward trajectory, the story becomes a human train wreck from which you cannot look away. I was cringing. I was mortified for him. I was horrified. I mentally begged him to retire. But although I lost count of how many times Ali said he was retiring, he kept going -- from bad to worse to mind-boggling. Every time I thought it couldn't get any worse, he sunk lower.

It wasn't just bad boxing. It was the inability to box, because his brain was so damaged. It wasn't a once-great ballplayer batting .105. It was that ballplayer forgetting how to swing a bat, while the whole world watched.

He should have been prevented from fighting. It would have been easy to do. His long-time ring doctor quit, refusing to participate further in the destruction of Ali's brain. Madison Square Garden said they would never book another Ali fight -- for the same reason. But too many people were making far too much money off Ali, so they let it continue, long past the time when it was obvious Ali's brain was irreparably damaged.

* * * * *

My interest in Ali has always been political, and the intersection of politics and sports, which (as wmtc readers know) I love and am fascinated with. I am not a boxing fan by any means. Not only don't I like to watch boxing, I detest the sport politically and ethically, knowing how it seduces poor boys with the promise of fame and fortune, then spits them out with their brains battered. So no, I am not a fan. But Eig's descriptions of the matches are brilliant -- the action unfolds before your eyes. Some of the descriptions of the famous matches are nothing short of epic. I learned a lot about the sport itself, both the athleticism it demands and the corrupt culture that surrounds it.

(As an aside, I also learned about the political context of the famous Ali-Foreman fight in Zaire, how it was financed by the corrupt and murderous dictator Joseph Mobutu. We've seen two documentaries about this fight -- "Soul Power" and "When We Were Kings" -- and neither contained one word about this!)

Back in January, I declared this year my "Year of the Biography". Of the eight bios on my list, I read only three, but they were massive: Arnold Rampersad's biography of Jackie Robinson, David W. Blight's bio of Frederick Douglass, and this one. All three books were excellent. But Eig's writing is so lively and entertaining, and Ali's story so compelling, that Ali: A Life is easily the best book I read this year -- one of the best nonfictions I've read in a long time.

maya moore's quest for justice

Long ago (in internet terms), in the early days of what we then called the Blogosphere, one of the primary functions of blogs was to share other posts and articles of interest that we came across online. Social media has taken over that function -- and much less effectively. How many people actually read links they find on Twitter? While a meme or a short video may go viral, a lengthy think-piece becomes just another passing link in the endless feed.

I stopped using this blog to share articles of interest, but sometimes I come upon something that I just can't let go. Then I need to send them out into the world again through wmtc. I have a couple of those right now. Here's the first one.

* * * *

Maya Moore, currently one of the best professional basketball players on the planet, stunned the WNBA and its fans when she announced she would not play in the 2019 season.

Her reasons are even more surprising: Moore left the game to focus on social justice. Specifically, justice for one man, wrongly convicted and serving prison time in the state of Missouri, and more generally, for a more just justice system. Moore believes this is her purpose in life, deeply connected to her faith.

Last summer, Moore's team, the Minnesota Lynx, took the court wearing t-shirts declaring "Change Starts with Us. Justice & Accountability" on the front and "Black Lives Matter" on the back, along with the names [Philando] Castile and [Alton] Sterling, two of the many African Americans killed by police. The t-shirt also displayed the Dallas, Texas Police shield, a reference to the five police officers killed by a sniper in 2016, one man's protest against police violence.

Moore became interested in the case of Jonathan Irons, currently serving 50 years for a crime he was convicted of in 1998, at the age of 16. She was so moved by the injustice of Irons' case that she decided to focus full-time on criminal-justice reform.

There's also another thread to this story. The WNBA has a salary cap of $120,000. By contrast, the minimum salary in the NBA is $98.226 million. Some fans laud female players for being less "greedy," but $120,000 may like a comfortable salary. But athletes' careers are very short and can be cut even shorter by injury. To maximize earning potential to help secure their futures, female players will also play in European and Asian leagues, essentially playing all year round with very few breaks.

When Moore stunned the basketball world with her announcement in the Players' Tribune website, she left her reasons vague. Then she sat down with sportswriter Kurt Streeter and told her story.

To read more about Moore's decision and Irons' case, see this story from June of this year, in the New York Times: Maya Moore Left Basketball. A Prisoner Needed Her Help.

thank you megan rapinoe!

I have a list of topics I want to write about, and I'm not finding any time when my brain is working to write. So on this topic I'm taking the easy and totally lame way out and posting a Facebook share. And that's fine, because no matter how much time I had and no matter how my foggy brain is functioning, I couldn't say this any better than one Omari Newtown, whose withering sarcasm is both hilarious and dead literate.

I never follow people I don't know on Facebook, but for this guy, I'll make an exception. I don't want to miss a word!

thank you alex cora and many red sox for doing the right thing

Thank you Alex Cora, Mookie Betts, David Price, Xander Bogaerts, Rafael Devers, Jackie Bradley Jr., Hector Velázquez, Christian Vázquez, Eduardo Núñez, and Sandy Leon! These nine players and their manager declined to attend the White House visit purporting to honour the 2018 championship team.

The Trump White House could not be bothered to spell the team's name correctly or name the actual sporting event that the team won. The World Series is the oldest professional team sports event in the United States, having been played since 1903. (The Kentucky Derby is older. Hopefully all the horses know that Trump's policies constitute a war on animals, and also boycott the visit.)

Earlier this year, the Golden State Warriors (NBA) expressed doubts about a White House visit, and the invitation was withdrawn. Ditto for the Philadelphia Eagles (NFL) after they won the 2018 Super Bowl. However, this silly headline, implying this is "nothing new", is false. Various individual players did not join their teams on White House visits. Half a team purposely not showing up is indeed new.

I appreciate the players' actions, especially those who explicitly stated why they didn't attend. In the ultra-conservative climate of professional sports, this is especially heartening.

thank you, colin kaepernick!

Another awesome athlete protest that I have no time to write about. I can only thank Colin Kaepernick for his courage.

Joy of Sox speaks for me: To Mookie Betts (And Others): The Right To Protest Has Nothing To Do With The Military.

solidarity from scotland to palestine via soccer

At a football (soccer) match between the Scottish Celtic team and an Israeli team, Hapoel Beersheba, hundreds of Celtic fans defied Scottish law to show their solidarity with Palestine and protest the Israeli occupation.

Mondoweiss reports:

There could be serious consequences for Celtic thanks to the protest, carried out in front of Israelis themselves. Fines and closures of their fans seating sections are possible, under UEFA rules. And a 2012 Scottish law against provocative political speech at sporting events makes the flag display an arrestable offense, although authorities reportedly did not take the offending fans into custody. There were dozens of them, photographs show.

Although the flag politics of the region are contrarian, the feelings of political solidarity are real.

“Since at least the late 80’s Palestine flags have been seen at Celtic Park and Celtic fans have shown their support for the Palestinians. Celtic fans have always had a radical history with support for Irish resistance to British rule and it is from there that support for Palestine stems. Also following support for Palestine among other football and sports fans and figures,” reads a Facebook page called Celtic Fans for Palestine, with about 3,300 members.

The Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) will weigh what could happen, but it might involve the closing of some of the stands in the stadium for a Champions league game, writes Neil Cameron in the Herald, a Scottish paper, in an opinion piece chiding protesters for risking the forfeiture of other fans tickets. European football carries out collective punishment against fans, apparently.

Watch this beautiful video from AJ+.

athletes in solidarity against unpunished police abuse crimes murder

Derrick Rose

Reggie Bush

Davin Joseph

Eric Garner

read dave kopay's open letter to michael sam

Did I celebrate Michael Sam's coming out on Facebook and Twitter, and forget to mention it on wmtc?? Ack! Social media run amok!

The news that a top NFL prospect has come out as gay in advance of the draft is electrifying. The support for Sam among NFL players is awesome. At first, there was a conspicuous silence among NFL owners, but Giants owner Steve Tisch and Dolphins owner Dolphins owner Stephen Ross have stepped up. Perhaps more will follow.

Here's an excerpt from an open letter to Michael Sam from Dave Kopay, a former NFL player who came out as gay after he retired.

Not only am I excited for you, I am excited for the NFL. I know the SEC is thanking its lucky stars that a player like you has succeeded and developed, and it would be a significant thing for the entire sports world and for you to continue on your path in the National Football League. But know that now that you are "publicly out" as a gay man you must focus on doing your job and don't let any naysayers bring you down. You are no wallflower and you can handle whatever crap comes your way. You will bring it like you never have before. For a moment, let's just remember how far we have all come.

When I first attended college in 1960, the University of Missouri was only three years into having its first black football player. It was a school where the Confederate flag was still flown for touchdowns. Many SEC schools were still years behind accepting black players. "No Negroes allowed," they said. This got my blood boiling and I can only imagine how so many of my teammates -- both black and white -- at the University of Washington reacted on seeing those words.

I entered college as a high school three-sport letterman, somewhat of a gifted athlete compared to most high school players, and got by on my natural athletic ability. Unlike you, I was not a naturally "tough" guy. I certainly had no idea the toughness it would take to really play on a team that had just won two Rose Bowls. I started my sophomore year and, as I had pledged a fraternity, got the attention of a particular pledge brother, Ray, who would become the love of my life. But in those days I was part of the invisible world. We could never talk about our love for each other let alone how we made love. As a junior, after I had not played to the standards of toughness my coaches required, I got benched. I pledged that I would rise back to the top and I did, by playing 48 minutes a game, making some league honors and getting elected co-captain of our Rose Bowl team as a senior. Ray became a Marine Captain and was killed in Vietnam. We could never talk about anything dealing with our love for each other, but at least for a moment I was to know love and what a wondrous thing it is.

I tell you this to alert to the fact that there are those out there that will get in your way to succeed or to love as you see fit. I was in Green Bay in 1972 when I got the news of Ray's death. I told coach Dan Devine that I had a friend killed in Vietnam and that I wanted to go to his funeral in Seattle. He strongly objected. We normally had Mondays off, with a light practice on Tuesday and I told him I must go, and I would be back for practice from Seattle either Tuesday or Wednesday. I couldn't believe he would object me going to honor a dear friend who had just given his life for his country. I went to Ray's funeral and I was back for practice. I was cut from the squad the next year.

an olympics for every protestor, and rainbow flags from canada... but not from rob ford

I started compiling my usual "why I can't watch the Olympics" post, when I read Dave Zirin... and stopped writing.

At every Olympics, you can cue the complaints, getting in the way when all we’re trying to do is enjoy a good luge.

Yet it took a visionary like Vladimir Putin, a man with the pecs to match his steely will, to finally figure out a way to unite the world and make the Olympics something for everybody. Everyone, thanks to Putin, has something to care about during the 2014 Sochi Games.

If you are a person with even the mildest concern for anything outside the five feet in front of your face, then this Olympiad is for you. No matter your cause, no matter your passion, Vladimir Putin has given you something to perk up about.

Something for everyone: LGBT rights, labour, the environment, genocide, cruelty to animals, free speech. Read "The 2014 Sochi Olympics: Something For Everyone!" on Edge of Sports, or at The Nation. It's truly priceless.

I was happy to hear that many Canadian cities have raised the Pride flag over their City Halls, to protest the homophobia and persecution of LGBT people around the Sochi Games. Jim Watson, the mayor of Ottawa, went a few steps further.

Of course, Mayor Crack continues to embarrass himself and Toronto. Seriously, does anyone actually say "sexual preference" anymore?

In The Globe and Mail, Brenda Cossman reminds us that the Olympics have always been political, and has some suggestions on how we can push the issue.

And from the wmtc archives, my Olympics disgust: Beijing, Vancouver, and generally, London.

sports without war: canada out of aghanistan, and military out of our sports

I have written a bit about the use of professional sports as a vehicle for war propaganda and militarism, such as when the Harper Government used the Olympic torch relay to promote its war in Afghanistan. My partner Allan has covered this ground more consistently, since he writes a sports blog. See, for example, his "Thoughts Prompted By The Red Sox Foundation's Association With "Run To Home Base"" and "The National Anthem And The Idea Of Respect", among others. These are mostly from a US perspective, since that's mostly where Major League Baseball is played.

Whether it's endless rounds of "God Bless America," (nationalism being the first stop on the road to war), the honouring of veterans who are always deemed "heroes," or in one case, a plan to distribute dog-tags to kids attending a game (dropped after protests), the continuing militarization of sports is a disturbing - yet largely uncontested - trend. When militarism is linked with sports, spectators of sport are turned into spectators of war. War becomes part of the entertainment. Fans of the game are expected to consume both forms of entertainment - to conflate the two, to see them as related and inseparable - and to do so unquestioningly.

Why?

Why is war glorified at a baseball game or a hockey game? Why is military worship associated with sporting events? Why should we accept this as normal and natural?

Have we come to see war as just another sport? Is there an assumption that the people who attend sporting events are especially receptive to military propaganda? Or is sport being used as the great leveler, the mass common denominator, the stand-in for The Public, those whose passive consent is required in order for the war to continue?

As both Allan and I have written in too many posts, questioning and challenging this norm is decried as "political," as in, "Why are you bringing politics into baseball? Can't we just enjoy the game?". On the other hand, the presence of militarism at a game, being the dominant view, is seen as neutral. But of course, it's not neutral. Every "hero" honoured, every flag waved, every resounding exhortation about the troops "protecting our way of life," is a conscious act, and a political one.

Apparently Canadians once saw this as a peculiarly USian phenomenon - but no longer. Given the nature of the Harper Government and the direction in which Canada has been headed, this is unsurprising. But we should still find it disturbing, and we should challenge it.

The current issue of Canadian Dimension magazine takes an in-depth look. In the lead story, "The NHL and the New Canadian Militarism: National Game, International Shame", Tyler Shipley works it out.

There was a time when the idea of military pomp at a Canadian sporting event would have seemed absurdly out of place — that was an American thing. Oh, how the times have changed.

These days, when you settle in to watch the Jets beat the Leafs on Saturday night, you do so understanding that there will almost inevitably be some kind of military spectacle on display. Maybe soldiers will rappel from the rafters to thunderous applause. Maybe there will be a moment of silence for our fallen heroes. Maybe Don Cherry will take us on an unscheduled trip to Kandahar in a jocular salute to the boys who are maintaining their team loyalties even while they keep us safe over there.

But wait — over where? Keeping us safe from whom? Doesn’t it matter?

Not according to the NHL, the CBC, or the countless franchises, broadcasters, sponsors and pundits who have made themselves a crucial component of the new Canadian militarism. Ours is not to talk about actual details of Canada’s military engagements, it is simply to “support the troops.” Those who question this mantra are told that while one may or may not agree with the particular deployments of the Canadian Armed Forces, we all have a responsibility to support the men and women who put their bodies on the line for us.

But the logic does not hold. Uncritically supporting the troops is a tacit support of their deployments especially since, in the first place, that support is premised on the notion that they are protecting us. That is, it requires that we believe that the troops’ particular deployments in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Haiti, Mali and elsewhere are making us safer — a claim that is not at all self-evident. Moreover, the military celebrations at NHL games themselves make no effort to separate the troops from their missions, and it needs to be added that there are plenty of other Canadians — aid workers, doctors, nurses, activists — who also put their bodies on the line doing work that doesn’t involve killing, injuring or torturing anyone. They receive no similar tributes at hockey games. [Read more here.]

If you're Canadian and this interests you, please check out the new group Sports Without War.

Sports Without War (SWW) is a collection of sports fans, athletes, concerned citizens, and activists organized against Canada’s role in imperial interventions, occupations and military actions around the world, most notably, in Afghanistan.

In particular, we are opposed to the increased use of professional sports as an avenue to promote an imperialistic, pro-military politics. SWW aims to challenge pro-military messaging at sporting events and in sports media through targeted information campaigns, speaking events, and public demonstrations.

Professional sports and the sporting media is a pervasive part of our lives. As sports fans, we enjoy participating in the excitement and drama of seeing the world’s greatest athletes compete at the highest level. Nevertheless, we increasingly find our enjoyment of the games interrupted by blatant military propaganda, from the presence of recruiters at arenas and stadiums, to military-themed team uniforms, to the spectacle of troops rappelling from the rafters, to solemn services honouring their sacrifices.

These services ignore the many people - often civilians - who have been killed in the course of Canada’s war in Afghanistan. In so doing, they explicitly support the Canadian occupation, which has not been driven by humanitarian or security interests but, rather, by a collusion of corporate interests that prioritize profits over human lives. In the meantime, the Canadian government is spending billions of dollars on the war machine, while ordinary Canadians are struggling in the climate of austerity, job cuts, and wage freezes.

The realm of professional sport should be reflective of popular opinion, rather than actively seeking to promote an unpopular pro-military position. But military propaganda in sports is part of a broader project to build support for a new Canadian militarism, in a country where some 80% of the population opposes its most visible military occupation, in Afghanistan.

SWW is part of the larger pro-peace, anti-war movement and understands that while sporting culture can be accessible and unifying, it can also be oppressive and violent along a variety of social divisions, including but not limited to gender, sexuality, race, and class. We will endeavor to create a non-hierarchical atmosphere at our meetings and events, and we encourage anyone interested in promoting peace and justice to participate in our organizing efforts.

Folks from SWW recently leafletted a Blue Jays game, in protest of the so-called "Sunday Salute" to a member of the Canadian military. You can find them on Facebook.

dimanno: let's make sochi the gay games

When I read Stephen Fry's open letter to the IOC, and the continued calls to boycott or move the Sochi Games because of the horrendous and institutionalized homophobic violence within Russia, I couldn't help but think of the Beijing Games. I absolutely understand the uproar over Russia's anti-gay laws, and I agree, of course. But did the same people make so much as a peep when the Olympics were in Beijing? China is one of the worst human rights offenders on the planet, but all I heard during the Beijing Olympics was "Go Canada".

I personally boycotted the Beijing Games (here's why), then soon discovered that I was done with the Olympics altogether. And certainly everyone who feels disgusted and offended at the homphobia emanating from Russia should personall boycott the games if that's what feels right to them. But Sochi is hosting, and that's not going to change. What can the people who'll be there do?

Rosie DiManno has the right idea. DiManno and I disagree on many things, especially on One Big Thing. But DiManno has been relentless on Toronto's Mayor Crack, as she is about police violence and abuse. And I think she's on the money on what needs to happen in Sochi.

American figure skater Johnny Weir intends to be his flamboyant gay self at the Sochi Olympics.

New Zealand speed skater Blake Skjellerup, homosexual and activist, will wear the Rainbow Pin created by the London 2012 Olympic Organizing Committee to promote diversity.

BBC presenter Clare Balding, best in show for sports commentary at those Games, will anchor 100 hours of Olympic coverage — undoubtedly as knowledgeable and frank as ever.

I defy any Russian government authority to drag an athlete off the medal podium or a lesbian personality out of the broadcast booth for the crime of making a pro-gay gesture or statement.

It won’t happen. The imbecilic legislation passed in June will be not merely ignored but exposed for all its ridiculous, draconian ambition. The athletes, primarily, will see to that. Throughout the history of the modern Games, they have always been the ones who’ve rescued the Olympics from politics, ideology and craven greed.

The most iconic image of the 1936 Olympics in Berlin — the Nazi Games — is Jesse Owens accepting his gold medal, on four occasions, even while German rivals gave their “Heil Hitler” salutes. A black man put the boots to Aryan racial superiority, with a sour-faced Hitler looking on.

While too much of a burden is routinely placed on athletes to exemplify something other than their sporting pre-eminence, in Sochi they will once again transcend the rhetoric and ranting on all sides with memorable performances. That’s as it should be. There will be no boycott, no moving of the Games to another city, as some have promoted. Logistically, it’s impossible. Morally, it’s on slippery turf.

. . . . .

Only once has the IOC cleaved to a moral compass — banning apartheid South Africa from the Games from 1964 to 1992. Meanwhile, African-American 200-metre medallists Tommie Smith and John Carlos were expelled from the Mexico Games for raising their fists on the podium in the Black Power salute.

If respecting human rights was a criterion for the IOC, they wouldn’t have awarded the Games to Sochi in the first place, or to Beijing in 2008. But it’s done and political protests that primarily punish athletes are intolerable.

The futility of this gambit repeatedly: President Jimmy Carter pulled the U.S. out of the Moscow Summer Games in 1980 over Russia’s invasion of Afghanistan, with Canada and more than 60 other countries following suit. (Twenty-one years later, it was America’s turn to invade Afghanistan.)

In Montreal, 1976, 24 countries boycotted the Games, objecting to the inclusion of New Zealand because their rugby team had played a match in apartheid South Africa. In 1984, it was the Soviet Union and its allies passing on Los Angeles in retaliation for 1980.

Many athletes only had that single shot at an Olympics. Who remembers now the sacrifices forced upon them, because politicians were gaming the Games?

So go, gays. Be proud, raise the rainbow flag, kiss your same-sex partners in the stands, scorn the stupid law. If any athlete is persecuted or prosecuted, the media will have your back.

For 17 days in February, let’s all be citizens of Queer Nation.

dave zirin writes to dan snyder: why the washington nfl team must change its name

Here is the definitive piece on why the NFL team in Washington DC must change its name, written by - who else - Dave Zirin: Enough: An Open Letter to Enough Dan Snyder, at Grantland. Please go and read it.

thank you, jason collins!

It has finally happened. A professional male athlete in one of the big US team sports has come out as gay. Someone had to be first, and that person is Jason Collins of the NBA. Thank you, Mr. Collins, for your courage and your honesty!

From the Sports Illustrated cover story:

I'm a 34-year-old NBA center. I'm black. And I'm gay.
I didn't set out to be the first openly gay athlete playing in a major American team sport. But since I am, I'm happy to start the conversation. I wish I wasn't the kid in the classroom raising his hand and saying, "I'm different." If I had my way, someone else would have already done this. Nobody has, which is why I'm raising my hand.

My journey of self-discovery and self-acknowledgement began in my hometown of Los Angeles and has taken me through two state high school championships, the NCAA Final Four and the Elite Eight, and nine playoffs in 12 NBA seasons.

. . . .

I realized I needed to go public when Joe Kennedy, my old roommate at Stanford and now a Massachusetts congressman, told me he had just marched in Boston's 2012 Gay Pride Parade. I'm seldom jealous of others, but hearing what Joe had done filled me with envy. I was proud of him for participating but angry that as a closeted gay man I couldn't even cheer my straight friend on as a spectator. If I'd been questioned, I would have concocted half truths. What a shame to have to lie at a celebration of pride. I want to do the right thing and not hide anymore. I want to march for tolerance, acceptance and understanding. I want to take a stand and say, "Me, too."

The recent Boston Marathon bombing reinforced the notion that I shouldn't wait for the circumstances of my coming out to be perfect. Things can change in an instant, so why not live truthfully? When I told Joe a few weeks ago that I was gay, he was grateful that I trusted him. He asked me to join him in 2013. We'll be marching on June 8.

No one wants to live in fear. I've always been scared of saying the wrong thing. I don't sleep well. I never have. But each time I tell another person, I feel stronger and sleep a little more soundly. It takes an enormous amount of energy to guard such a big secret. I've endured years of misery and gone to enormous lengths to live a lie. I was certain that my world would fall apart if anyone knew. And yet when I acknowledged my sexuality I felt whole for the first time.

Jason Collins will never know all the people he has reached, the lives he has touched, with his courage and his honesty. I look forward to the time when a professional athlete being out is completely unremarkable.

how can we condemn bigotry on the soccer field yet support racist israeli policies?

This week in The Nation, Dave Zirin reports on some disturbing - and disgusting - behaviour from Israeli soccer fans.

Not even in the earliest days of Jackie Robinson’s 1947 historic debut with the Brooklyn Dodgers did Brooklyn’s white fans walk out after number 42 stole a base or hit a home run. The Brooklyn faithful’s love of “Dem Bums” trumped any racism that simmered in the stands. What does it say that sixty-six years later, Israeli fans of the soccer club Beitar Jerusalem have not evolved to postwar-Brooklyn standards of human decency?

Earlier this season, Beitar Jersulam broke their own version of the “color line” by signing the first two Muslim players in team history: Zaur Sadayev and Dzhabrail Kadiyev. Predictably, Beitar’s supporters were madder than the NRA in a school zone. Boos have rained down on Sadayev and Kadiyev every time they’ve taken the field or touched the ball. Several members of a team fan club flew a banner that read, “Beitar is pure forever.” Two others attempted to burn down the team offices. This pales, however, next to what happened when Sadayev scored his first goal for the team last week. After the striker found glory, hundreds of Beitar Jerusalem fans simply stood up and walked out. Even by soccer standards, where racism on the pitch is a continual plague, this organized nature of the action was shocking.

As one 19-year-old fan told The Independent, “The reaction to the Muslim players being here is not racist. But the club’s existence is under threat. Beitar is a symbol for the whole country.” Another said, “It’s not racism, they just shouldn’t be here…. Beitar Jerusalem has always been a clean club, but now it’s being destroyed—many of the other players are thinking of leaving because of the Muslim players being here."

Most Americans and Canadians will be repelled by this blatant bigotry, and will condemn it. That certainly includes most US Jews. But how many of those North Americans will continue to support the roots of this bigotry?

Israel's racist policies of exclusion condone and enable this disgusting display. Indeed, it's not possible to build a society on racist policies and not see this kind of behaviour on the ground. Just like "whites only" signs and segregated public facilities throughout the Jim Crow US South enabled and condoned ugly, hateful acts by some white Americans, so do the racist policies of present-day Israel enable these hateful acts by Israeli soccer fans.

If this is wrong, the wall is wrong.

If this is wrong, the checkpoints are wrong.

If this is wrong, Jewish-only Israeli settlements in the West Bank are wrong.

If this is wrong, laws controlling the legal rights, movements, access to land, and civil liberties of Palestinian people - laws that do not apply to Israelis - are wrong.

How can you condemn these soccer fans and their desire for racial purity, yet continue to support Israeli apartheid?

Read Dave Zirin's full column here.

See also, my interview with a South African activist explaining why it is accurate to call the Israeli system of control of the Palestinian population apartheid, and why that apartheid is even more brutal than the system he grew up under in South Africa: "they didn't build a wall": is israel an apartheid state? a south african perspective: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, and part 5.

See also, Dave Zirin: Killing Hope: Why Israel Targets Sports in Gaza

walmart workers, marvin miller, rob ford: important stuff that happened while i wasn't blogging

As the title says, here are some things I thought about while I was taking a blogging break.

● Marvin Miller died. Miller should be a hero of both the labour movement and baseball history. He should also be in the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Anyone interested in the intersection of sports and politics should read his terrific book, A Whole New Ball Game. Dave Zirin interviews Miller here; Joy of Sox muses on his passing here.

During the 1994 baseball strike, I wrote to Miller via the players' union. Within two weeks, I received a reply: a typewritten letter, which included his home address. Something to treasure.

● There's really nothing I can say about Rob Ford, former mayor of Toronto, that hasn't already been said. I just wanted wmtc to join the celebration. Marcus Gee: Rob Ford's self-inflicted downfall; Toronto Media Coop: Rob Ford's litany of misdeeds.

● Photos from the OUR Walmart actions on the day after US Thanksgiving are here. OUR Walmart writes:

We did it!

With your support, hundreds of us bravely stood up to Walmart on Black Friday and went on strike. Despite the retail giant's illegal threats and scare tactics, we were inspired to take action like never before.

In addition to the stores where we had planned strikes, we heard about other coworkers in Atlanta, GA, Ocean City, MD, Tupelo, MS, and even Paducah, KY-who were inspired to strike by the incredible outpour of support by community members like you!

Unsurprisingly, Walmart's high-priced PR team is doing everything they can to downplay these historic events and ignore its employees. Deciding to go on strike on Black Friday was never about boycotting or affecting Walmart's bottom line. It was about changing the national debate about workers in this country. With more than 2,000 news stories covering the historic strikes, we are making our voices heard.

With tens of thousands of supporters on our side, we will continue to grow more support and build more alliances. Rest assured, if Walmart does not stop its retaliation against workers who speak out for change, we will strike again. We know change will not happen overnight, especially in the face of Walmart's fierce opposition and illegal threats. But the truth is out-and we will not back down. We will continue to raise our voices, and we will continue to bring on new supporters every day.

We are not afraid to stand up and speak out, because with your support, we all see that change is possible.