Pentagon and US sport cartels

Pentagon systematically uses taxpayer money to turn sporting events into imperialist propaganda.

The U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds conduct a flyover before a game between the Philadelphia Eagles and the Washington Redskins at FedEx Field in Landover, Maryland, on September 10, 2017 | Ricky Bowden/U.S. Army

By John Kiriakou*

(June 23, 2021) – I go to a lot of Major League Baseball games. I really love the sport.

If you’ve been to a baseball game in the past decade, you’ve probably noticed some changes. National Guard members and police colour guard units now perform flag ceremonies between innings. Military recruits are enlisted right on the field. Surprise reunions of deployed men and women and their families play out before an audience of thousands. The seventh-inning stretch is dedicated to honouring “wounded warriors.”

Now is a good time to start treating the Negro Leagues equally

There’s a more meaningful way than this for baseball to honour its Negro Leagues greats | Christian Petersen/Getty Images

By Jesse Campigotto

By the time Jackie Robinson broke MLB’s colour barrier in 1947 (after a cup of coffee in the Negro American League), most of the Negro Leagues had disbanded. The remaining ones followed as more of the best Black players joined Robinson in the bigs. The final so-called “Negro World Series” — between the champions of the Negro American League and the second incarnation of the Negro National League — was played in 1948. The Negro NL ceased to exist after that, leaving the Negro AL as the sole survivor. It technically kept going until 1962, but baseball historians believe it stopped being close to major-league quality around 1950, by which time the integration of MLB had cost the Negro AL much of its talent base — and thus its fan appeal.

MLB announces players will now be quarantined for 14 days between bases

The Onion

Bringing professional sports back to Canada in this pandemic is unsafe. Period

The Toronto Blue Jays are set to begin their summer training camp this weekend at Rogers Centre | Darren Calabrese / CP

By CATHAL KELLY

This week, the Toronto Blue Jays released their plan to resume ‘spring’ training in Toronto. Players will begin heading north from the United States as early as this weekend.

COVID-19 hotspot breaks out at MLB youth baseball academy in Venezuela

The Roberto Vahlis youth baseball academy on Margarita Island, Nueva Esparta State has seen 41 cases of COVID-19 over one weekend | @cristobnaranjo / Twitter

By Paul Dobson

(April 20) – According to Communications Minister Jorge Rodriguez on April 17, a COVID-19 hotspot broke out at the Roberto Vahlis youth baseball academy on Margarita Island, Nueva Esparta State [north east Venezuela], which, together with a nearby coastguard center, has seen 62 cases so far.

XVIII Pan Am Games: A world away

By TONY SEED

Do you remember the Pan-American Games in 2015 in Toronto? It was a festival of sport and friendship of more than 6,000 young athletes from the Americas with venues throughout Southern Ontario. To raise the army of volunteers needed for various tasks, more than 60,000 people came forward to be selected, and of these only a third were chosen. Canada organized a delegation of its top athletes, who finished second in the medal standing. The Rogers Centre was packed for the closing ceremonies. The hosts built more than ten new facilities and 15 others were remodelled, to inspire the crowds that filled them. The privately-owned Hamilton Tiger Cats even finally walked away with a new stadium paid for by public tax dollars and renamed after some coffee chain owned in Brazil.

Trump breaks Cuba-US baseball agreement

The agreement applauded by players and fans around the world was canceled to further the Trump administration’s increasingly confrontational policy toward Cuba | Oscar Sánchez Serra

It is not news that the Trump administration has canceled the agreement signed by the MLB and the Cuban Baseball Federation, on December 19, after three years of hard work by both parties.

And it is not because the agreement sought to end the human suffering of Cuban athletes.

Cuban Baseball Federation and MLB reach historic agreement

“Today is a happy day for Cuban baseball, for the world, the people of Cuba and the United States,” stated Higinio Vélez Carrión, president of the Cuban Baseball Federation (FCB), referring to the agreement to allow Cuban players to sign with the Major Leagues | Sigfredo Barros Segrera and Oscar Sánchez Serra

Tampa Bay Rays playing in Havana’s Latinoamericano Stadium, March 2016 | Ricardo López Hevia

Oilers cross Boston picket line

On October 7, the Edmonton Oilers hockey team checked in at the Ritz-Carlton in downtown Boston, a Marriott hotel. As they got off the bus, the team was greeted by a group of hotel workers on strike, members of Local 26 of the Hospital and Food Servers Union. 7,700 Marriott workers are out in six cities across the USA: San Diego, Detroit, San Francisco, San Jose, and Boston. They are demanding the richest hotel company in the world recognize them.

Are sports organizations playing a role in America’s obesity problem?

by Dr. Francis Collins

Last September, the National Football League struck a deal with Frito-Lay that allowed the company to produce limited-edition bags of Tostitos tortilla chips, with each package bearing the logo of one of 19 featured NFL teams. Several months earlier, Major League Baseball announced that Nathan’s Famous would be its first-ever official hot dog. Now the first-ever comprehensive analysis of such food and beverage sponsorships by major sports organizations shows just how pervasive these deals are. The confusing messages they send about physical fitness and healthy eating habits can’t be helping our national problem with obesity [1].