Congressman asks Selig to move 2011 All-Star Game

[boondockdrunk]

Congressman asks Selig to move game

Protests about Arizona's recently passed immigration law continue as U.S. Rep. Jose Serrano (D-N.Y.) said he will ask baseball commissioner Bud Selig to pull the 2011 All-Star Game from Phoenix.

The World Boxing Council on Thursday said it will not schedule Mexican fighters in the state, and 40 immigration rights supporters protested outside Wrigley Field, where the Arizona Diamondbacks are playing the Chicago Cubs this week.

Serrano, who represents the Bronx, said he asked Selig to move the game in a letter he sent Thursday.

"This anti-immigrant law is unjust, wrongheaded, mean-spirited and unconstitutional," Serrano said in a statement released late Wednesday. "It is important that everyone who believes in justice and our national spirit of decency speak out against this measure.

"MLB has a very loud megaphone, and their rejection of Arizona's action would be an important demonstration to Arizona that we do not tolerate such displays of intolerance in our nation."

Critics say the law will lead to racial profiling by police.

The Mexico City-based WBC called Arizona's law, which makes it a crime to be in the state illegally, "shameful, inhuman and discriminatory."

WBC president Jose Sulaiman said in a statement that the ban on Arizona fights involving Mexican fighters also has been approved by the Federation of Boxing Commissions of Mexico.

The boxing ban will start Saturday.

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=5151030

 

[MaoTosiFanClub]

Watch out for the Cubs-Spring Training issue to pop up again.

 

[Go Devils]

Fine, let them move it. Everyone will piss and moan about the heat anyway. Everything stated about the bill in that article is wrong. Please show me where it's "unconstitutional"? AZ should not back down from media pressure. A majority of the nation and more importantly the state agree wiht the bill. Besides a number of other states are getting ready to pass the same thing.

 

[boondockdrunk]

If the AllStar game is played here in 2011 does anyone see a protest from foreign born players?

Edit: Quote deleted because article was altered by ESPN

 

[MigratingOsprey]

The union head should take a minute and read the actual legislation

I would also like to advise MLB that they should stick to playing a sport and not focus on politics and get into what is mainly a political issue.

 

[HooverDam]

Fine, let them move it. Everyone will piss and moan about the heat anyway. Everything stated about the bill in that article is wrong. Please show me where it's "unconstitutional"? AZ should not back down from media pressure. A majority of the nation and more importantly the state agree wiht the bill. Besides a number of other states are getting ready to pass the same thing.

You're not real familiar with the 4th Amendment are you?

Its not the states job to enforce Federal law either, so the law is just a mess.

While I doubt it'll cause Phoenix the 2011 All Star Game like the MLK Holiday debacle caused us the Super Bowl, I could see it having other effects. Phoenix is definitely going to lose Conventions, concerts, visitors, etc. With our economy in shambles already we really can't afford to submarine the tourism sector as well.

 

[boondockdrunk]

Players, coaches speak out against law

NEW YORK -- Given a chance to take part in the 2011 All-Star game at Arizona, Ozzie Guillen insists he won't go.

"I wouldn't do it," the Chicago White Sox manager said Friday. "As a Latin American, it's natural that I have to support our own."

Guillen joined a growing chorus of opposition to Arizona's new law that empowers police to determine a person's immigration status. The state is home to all four major team sports, hosts half the clubs in spring training and holds top events in NASCAR, golf and tennis.

The Major League Baseball players' union issued a statement condemning the law. A congressman whose district includes Yankee Stadium wrote a letter to baseball commissioner Bud Selig urging him to pull the All-Star game from Phoenix. The World Boxing Council took a step to limit fights in Arizona.

"It's a bad thing," said Baltimore shortstop Cesar Izturis, born in Venezuela. "Now they're going to go after everybody, not just the people behind the wall. Now they're going to come out on the street. What if you're walking on the street with your family and kids? They're going to go after you."

With more than one-quarter of big leaguers on opening-day rosters were born outside the 50 states, most of them from Hispanic descent.

"These international players are very much a part of our national pastime," MLB union head Michael Weiner said. "Each of them must be ready to prove, at any time, his identity and the legality of his being in Arizona to any state or local official with suspicion of his immigration status."

Weiner said that if the law is not repealed or modified, the union would consider "additional steps."

A day earlier, WBC president Jose Sulaiman said its sanctioning body unanimously agreed it will not authorize Mexican boxers to fight in Arizona.

"Great figures of boxing have fought in Arizona, boxers such as Julio Cesar Chavez, Salvador Sanchez, Konstantin Tszyu, 'Coloradito' Lopez and many, many others," said Sulaiman, who is based in Mexico City. "The WBC will not allow that in boxing, athletes are exposed to suffer that degrading act, humiliating and inhumane, as racial discrimination is."

MLB, the NFL and the NBA declined comment on the law.

The BCS national championship game will be played next January in Glendale, Ariz., shortly after the city hosts the Fiesta Bowl.

"The recent Arizona immigration legislation is obviously a matter of great public concern," the Fiesta Bowl said in a statement Friday. "While this matter may ultimately be resolved in a court of law or in the court of public opinion, we are certain that it will not be resolved on the fields of college football."

Rep. Jose Serrano, D-N.Y., sent a letter Thursday night to Selig, asking him to take next year's All-Star game out of Arizona.

Calling the law "extremist" and "discriminatory," the congressman wrote: The All-Star game is now not just a display of baseball's best talent, but is also a display of the global reach of the game. It is at odds with the reality of the modern game to hold such a prestigious event in a state that would not welcome those same players if they did not play our national pastime."

Arizona Diamondbacks managing general partner Ken Kendrick said "this whole situation is sad and disappointing."

"We believe the federal government should act swiftly to address the immigration issue once and for all," he said in a statement.

Said Cleveland Indians coach Sandy Alomar Jr., whose team trains in Goodyear, Ariz.: "Certainly I am against profiling any race and having sterotypes, but at the same time my feeling is what does baseball have to do with politics? Let the politicians stay in politics and the baseball players play baseball."

Guillen, from Venezuela, became an American citizen in 2006. He said players should consider boycotting baseball in Arizona, adding, "I plead sportsmen to join on this."

The White Sox hold spring training in suburban Phoenix. Guillen said he hoped MLB would take a strong stance on the immigration law.

"They have to. They have a team in Arizona," he said. "There is a concern for baseball players to go out there, of course, and we've got to support those people."


Copyright 2010 by The Associated Press

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=5152397

 

[BC867]

The legislation isn't meant to discriminate against law-abiding Mexican-American citizens (and it has just been edited to guard against racial profiling).

It is meant to catch and prosecute ILLEGAL aliens who are smuggling drugs and victims into the US. And now the coyotes are wearing guns.

Within the past few weeks, a rancher was shot to death on his property and today a Sheriffs deputy was shot outside of Casa Grande.

And the coyotes are shooting each other, as they steal truckloads of illegal immigrants bound for the US from each other. It has reached the danger point.

The Feds have the same responsibility to act, as they did against the Mafia all those decades ago. It wasn't meant to apprehend Italian-American citizens. Just the lawbreakers who did everything from intimidating shop owners into paying protection money to murder.

The Feds acted then. They need to act now. ILLEGAL was illegal then and it should be now.

My political leanings are left of center. I am of neither Italian nor Mexican descent. And from Viet Nam to the present, I do not support the arrogance of government.

But what's right is right. And I applaud the Republican administration for setting in motion what I believe will be a national reaction within a month.

And hopefully Bud-lite Selig will decide that politics should have no bearing on the location of the all-star game.

 

[Brian in Mesa]

"Now they're going to go after everybody, not just the people behind the wall. Now they're going to come out on the street. What if you're walking on the street with your family and kids? They're going to go after you." - Cesar Izturis

Wow, clearly an educated guy that has personally read the law.

 

[PoolBoy]

Ozzie Guillen is a Latin-AMERICAN

those affected by this law are not AMERICANS.

this crap is really starting to piss me off. If we lose the all star game im going to lose it.

 

[MaoTosiFanClub]

It's likely we lose the AS Game, the Cubs are a possibility as well. The MLB Players Union is that strong and Fox and Selig don't want some of the world's best players not there.

Politics aside, the fallout from this measure was pretty easy to foresee and all of us are going to suffer because of it.

 

[splitsecond]

You're not real familiar with the 4th Amendment are you?

Its not the states job to enforce Federal law either, so the law is just a mess.

While I doubt it'll cause Phoenix the 2011 All Star Game like the MLK Holiday debacle caused us the Super Bowl, I could see it having other effects. Phoenix is definitely going to lose Conventions, concerts, visitors, etc. With our economy in shambles already we really can't afford to submarine the tourism sector as well.

The state is allowed to pass laws that further enforce federal laws as long as it doesn't prevent federal laws from being enforced, which this does not. There is no separation of powers issue as long as the state is not altering or affecting federal law, but is instead adding to it.

It's likely we lose the AS Game, the Cubs are a possibility as well. The MLB Players Union is that strong and Fox and Selig don't want some of the world's best players not there.

Politics aside, the fallout from this measure was pretty easy to foresee and all of us are going to suffer because of it.

We won't lose the all-star game unless the MLB is planning on getting sued for millions of dollars for breach of contract, a suit that the MLB will 100% lose.

The Cubs on the other hand are another issue. Of course one could argue that if Mesa wasn't looking the other way on some of their own illegal immigration issues this wouldn't even be a discussion...

 

[Southpaw]

Message for Ozzie;

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[Brian in Mesa]

KTAR text: Bud Selig has announced that the 2011 All-Star Game will reamain in Phoenix.

 

[Lefty]

http://www.nationalsenquirer.com/2010/06/about-that-az-allstar-game-boycott-sign.html

 

[Tyler]

THose guys can piss into the wind on a busy set of train tracks for all I care.

 

[Southpaw]

Is it a coincidence that the advertising in the background was for the Peachpickers of America?

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