During opening day ceremonies, the Atlanta Braves offered baseball fans the lovely and unifying sight of an American flag stretched across much of the outfield, along with digital images of the stars and stripes on the team’s huge video scoreboards. Craig Calcaterra, a sportswriter for NBC, was appalled: “Will you keep politics out of sports, please. We like sports to be politics-free,” he sarcastically tweeted with an accompanying photo of the offending spectacle.
When asked “how is the flag political,” Calcaterra helpfully explained, “Maybe a flag, in and of itself isn’t always political.”
Well, how nice of him to concede that MAYBE the symbol of our country can sometimes-perhaps meet with his stringent “apolitical” standards.
Calcaterra also has a problem with military flyovers: “A two-acre flag with a military flyover is saying something very specific, however, ” he tweeted.
Calcaterra then offered examples of when the American flag was politicized, 47-year-old examples from 1970 that appear to connect with what Major League Baseball does today … in no way whatsoever:
Note how Calcaterra appears to miss his own point, the point that the flag only becomes political when jerk-offs (like, say, Calcaterra) point to it and declare it political.
In summation: according to Calcaterra, honoring a country built on the very idea of allowing him to question his leaders, and honoring the men and women in the military who fight and die so he can enjoy that freedom, somehow invades his precious safe space and makes him feel all oppressed n’ stuff.
I would just like to stop for a moment to point out that never once during the 8 years of Obama’s regime did the sight of Old Glory accompanied by a military flyover in any way make me feel as though I wanted my mommy.
But in the spirit of democratic compromise, let us come together and see if we cannot find some middle ground.
Since Calcaterra is willing to concede that maybe some flags of a certain size are not always political, maybe he could inform Major League Baseball of the size of the flag that doesn’t make him wet the bed?
As far as the military flyovers, we will just tell our fascist stormtroopers that their jet fuel is melting too many NBC snowflakes.
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