The militarization of MLB

What will the Blue Jays do?

This Thursday, all Major League Baseball teams will take the field wearing specially designed “Stars and Stripes” caps, part of the league’s Welcome Back Veterans initiative. (Barring rainouts, the Yankees and Mets won’t take part, as they’re off that day.) Following the games, the caps will be auctioned to raise money for veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.

There’s nothing wrong with helping veterans — no matter how you feel about America’s current wars, those returning from battle are in undeniable need of help — but doing so on September 11 turns a simple charity event into a troubling political statement. In past years, New York’s teams donned NYPD and FDNY caps to remember the 2,974 people who died that day (most of them in fact ordinary citizens who happened to be at the World Trade Center, not uniformed personnel), and call attention to the ongoing needs of first responders. By choosing instead to make the day about the wars that the U.S launched in the wake of 9/11, baseball is casting its lot with those who say the proper response to tragedy is to retaliate — and delivering a slap in the face to 9/11 family groups like Peaceful Tomorrows that are working to use the shared grief of victims of war and terror to build bridges to international understanding.

Over the last seven years we've seen MLB align itself time and again with George Bush and his wars. And this is especially annoying since so few veterans are coming home from those wars anytime soon.