When Petty Minds Attack

"Baseball been berry berry good to me."

A baseball movie was once very good to Tim Robbins, not to mention baseball itself, and later this month the Baseball Hall Of Fame in Cooperstown, NY. was scheduled to hold a 15 year anniversary of the film's release. For those who haven't had the pleasure, it's a great movie, even if you're not much of a baseball fan. I took my mother to see it, and initially thought it might be too racy for her, but the hoots and snickers from the seat beside me allayed my fears. Unfortunately for the film, both Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon happen to be in it, and a former Reagan administration official happens to be the president of the Baseball Hall Of Fame.

Thus, the celebration of a great movie and a great game is tarnished by a tiny mind and self-righteous grandstanding.

Dale Petroskey, now president of the hall of shame, was once assistant press secretary in the Reagan administration, infamous for its ability and willingness to tell the Big Lie, and thousands of little ones. These lies often concealed the fact that Reaganite policies were getting people killed. Petroskey apprently holds a deep dislike for Robbins and Sarandon, both famous in recent times for their statements against the war in Iraq, and both long term committed activists for peace and social justice, concepts that stick in the craw of every former Regan official, including the many currently running the war.

So Petroskey issued these words:

"In a free country such as ours, every American has the right to his or her own opinions, and to express them.
Public figures have platforms much larger than the average American's, which provides you an extraordinary
opportunity to have your views heard - and an equally large obligation to speak and act responsibly. We believe
your very public criticism of President Bush at this important - and sensitive - time in our nation's history helps
undermine the U.S. position, which could put our troops in even more danger."

To politicize a celebration of a baseball movie at a baseball shrine is beyond pathetic, but I'm not surprised at all. The Republicans seem to have carried over the famous enemies lists of the Nixon era. Al-Jazeera gets tossed off the floors of stock exchanges, FoxSpews gets special treatment in exchange for savaging any mildly famous person who expresses and opinion considerd deviant from the party line, and now this stupidity. The hall of fame is home to thugs and wife beaters past, and future to Pete Rose, who bet on his own sport, a true violation of the ethics of the game, but he will be enshrined. Robbins and Sarandon were merely part of a film about baseball unlike any other ever made, one to be celebrated, and within the context of the game they have comitted no harm, no foul. Beyond the white lines they spoke their minds as responsible citizens are *required* to do as part of their civic duty, a concept so distorted as to be lost.

Tim Robbins, after receiving Dale Petroskey's admonishing letter, said this:

"I had been unaware baseball was a Republican sport.
Long live democracy, free speech and the `69 Mets - all improbably glorious miracles that I've always believed in."