Dthe most striking symbol? A nearly 200-meter-long, black fabric tape along which the professionals and their trainers lined up and framed the funnel-shaped playing field before they silently knelt for a minute. It was a symbolic gesture that was to channel the nationwide protest against police brutality against African Americans into a sympathy rally in which all baseball professionals would participate. The idea came from the newly founded Players Alliance of 150 current and former black players. It was relined with a text written by a player, which the film actor Morgan Freeman had recorded and which was played on the loudspeaker system in the stadium. The message? It sounded like heavy pathos. Such a demonstration should not only be an expression of anger and horror, it said. But at the same time it must show “our brotherhood, our unity”. Because every effort to change society needs two decisive ingredients that point in a positive direction: optimism and empathy.
No wonder that the whole thing seemed a bit hard. In a league like Major League Baseball (MLB), which in its long history has never employed more than 20 percent black players in any season (the current proportion is eight percent), topics such as skin color and social justice are not half as specific as for example in the National Football League or the National Basketball Association, in which more than two thirds of the players are African American.
In baseball, the greater number of representatives of social minorities are Latin American professionals, who have now reached almost 30 percent. They too feel marginalized in Donald Trump’s America with his aversion to immigrants from the south. But since the majority of them are not citizens, they do not identify with the pathetic patriotism of the host country. The result: apolitical apathy instead of open solidarity.
Which is why the protest staging on Thursday, when the new season in Washington and Los Angeles started with a virus several months late, was more like a compulsory exercise. After all, numerous players had one or two patches on their sleeves. One said “Black Lives Matter”, the other “United for Change”. On the back of the throwing hill, a modified and black logo of the league was visible in the stadiums with the abbreviation BLM instead of the usual MLB.
In Washington, weeks ago, the scene of demonstrations near the White House that the police used tear gas to make Trump walk to a neighboring church where he was holding a Bible in the air, the action still looked like a provocation. The president had already attacked such popular campaigns in 2016, when football professional Colin Kaepernick was the first professional athlete to use the stadium’s platform to draw attention to the oppression of his black compatriots. When the Washington Nationals became champions last fall, he attended the fifth game in the final series, the so-called World Series, and was booed by spectators.
This is how the epidemiologist Dr. Anthony Fauci a special meaning too. The 79-year-old director of the National Institute for Infectious Diseases is struggling within the Washington government to implement a fact-based policy to combat the spread of the coronavirus. Which is difficult if the opponent is a president with an all-round power who only makes a decision based on whether he looks good or not. Fauci threw the symbolic first ball clumsily past the catcher. What was the reason that the home team lost the game against the New York Yankees 1-4. The game was stopped after a long break due to heavy rain, lightning and thunder. Washington had started without one of its best players. Juan Soto had tested positive for the corona virus and was not allowed to participate.
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