THE MILITARIZATION OF BASEBALL

I love baseball and the Baltimore Orioles are my favorite team.  Because I grew up in a military family we moved every 2-3 years.  I lived all over the US and in England and Germany (twice).  I never really had a home town to speak of.  The Orioles were my roots.

It's become harder and harder for me to remain a fan but I keep trying in spite of the big $$$ takeover of sports.  But the worst part for me is the increasing militarization of baseball.  Just tonight, after being at a meeting in Portland to hear a peace movement speaker, I came home to check to see how my O's did.  They beat the Red Sox.  I was excited until I saw the camouflage uniforms the O's wore on the field.  This is happening with increasing regularity.

I feel like we are living in Nazi Germany where Hitler used every manifestation of popular culture to promote his dark war agenda.  He ingratiated himself with youth scouting, he gave awards to families that had been on the land for hundreds of years as many German farm families had, he gave awards to families with certain numbers of kids which was almost all German families...... it went on and on.

In the US we know we've become an occupied country when every where we turn we see indications of the militarization of our culture.  Baseball is just the canary in the coal mine. I often tell the story about the Sears department store trotting out a new kids clothing line a couple years ago - military uniforms for boys. The message: this is your future, this is all you can be.

I had to do something so I wrote the following letter to the Major League Players Association tonight.  It's a small gesture but I can't remain silent about this.  I also posted these comments on a Orioles fan chat site.  It will be interesting to see the responses.

Dear MLBPA,

I am 60 years old and a lifelong Baltimore Orioles fan.

I am also a Vietnam-era veteran who learned during that time to be opposed to our endless wars.

I am deeply troubled by the growing takeover of MLB by the military industrial complex.  It is sold as patriotism and "support our troops:" but what I see is the use of baseball to sell the military mindset and endless war to the public.

Baseball belongs to everyone.  Once it begins to come under the control of any particular corporate agenda the sport loses.

The camo hats and uniforms, the constant hyping of the war machine at games indicates that this takeover is well underway.

I can feel myself slipping away from the game that I love so much because I find it hard to watch this dangerous militarization of baseball.

I hope the players are concerned about this as well.  If not, we are all in trouble.

Thanks.

Bruce K. Gagnon
Bath, Maine