The Home Run King’s home away from home (April 21):
MOBILE, Alabama — The Home Run King’s home needs a home.
This coastal town, which has produced more Major League Baseball Hall of Famers per capita than any city on Earth, has long taken special pride in the man who broke Babe Ruth’s career home-run record, Hank Aaron.
When the city built a facility for the Mobile BayBears (a minor league baseball team) in 1997, it was named Hank Aaron Stadium. And when, in 2007, Aaron’s mother finally moved from the small home her husband built for the family 65 years earlier, the city moved the whole house 7 miles onto stadium property….
NBA legend Phil Jackson wants to depoliticize sports (April 24):
Hail to legendary professional basketball coach Phil Jackson for having the guts to say sports shouldn’t be politicized.
During a recent podcast , the 11-time NBA coaching champion said he hasn’t followed the league since 2020 because it has become too political. Noting the pandemic-era habit of players wearing political catchphrases on their uniforms and teams writing “slogans on the floor and the baseline,” Jackson said, “People want to see sports as nonpolitical. … It doesn’t need to be there.”
The proper way to analyze Jackson’s position is to ignore the specific content of the messages the NBA and its players promote. It should matter not which side of the political spectrum is much more in evidence. Jackson’s point wasn’t about the substance of the messages, but about the politicization itself, in any direction. And he is right. When players politicize the arena itself, they detract from the game. They also turn off fans by the droves — mostly, of course, fans who disagree with the particular politics being promulgated, but also fans who may even agree but want to watch sports for their unvarnished athleticism and, perhaps, sportsmanship. For many fans, sports are an escape. Politics ruin the escape….
