Presidential Pitches

Perhaps you are aware that the White House hosted a "Tee Ball All-Star Game" on July 16. Many baseball and media personalities were present, including Mike Greenberg and Mike Golic. The hosts of ESPN's "Mike & Mike in the Morning" served as announcers for the game. If you've listened to any of Mike & Mike in the past couple of mornings, you know that there was also a dinner at the White House and a host events that celebrated the "national pastime."

After summarizing the experience, Greenberg states on his website:

"I’ll just say this, and I’ve said it from the day we started the show: Mike and I do not ever bring our politics to the show. I have my own political views. It makes no difference whether I like or do not like or support or do not support the current President of the United States. This was an event to celebrate baseball, it was an event where they gave kids from families that were in need or kids with special needs the opportunity to come play a tee ball game on the lawn at the White House and to celebrate baseball. It was a purely non-political event, and it is an honor, in my opinion, to be invited to the White House regardless of the circumstances, but under these circumstances, there was never any question that it was anything but a privilege for us to be invited and to be there. I hope it did not come across in any way as being about politics in any way, because it certainly was not the point. It was about baseball and about being given a chance to be a part of something very special."

I believe Greenberg is being sincere. He really wants to keep baseball and politics separate. But I don't think he can. So here is the letter I sent to Mike & Mike:


Dear Mike & Mike,

I am a regular listener/viewer of the show. I have long appreciated that you both can be passionate and intelligent (despite the Golic shtick pretending to be otherwise) sports fans without resorting to the typical talk-radio gimmicks. And I appreciate that you both seem sensitive to political and social concerns as they arise.

I am also a professor who studies the relationship between sports and politics, and the important political symbolism communicated through sports. Greeny, I read your summary of the White House visit with great interest. I have been working on a book called, Baseball and Rhetorics of Purity: The National Pastime and American Identity during the War on Terror. Given this, I'm rather tuned in to any connection I see between baseball and politics. I understand your position that you and Golic appeared at the White House with the sincere intention of keeping politics out of it. But it might be worth considering how the event and your appearance could be seen as political, regardless of your intent.

This calls to mind discussions you have had in months past about steroids and baseball, during which you have wondered why baseball is held to a higher standard than other sports. I would suggest that the answer is found in a historical framework that upholds baseball as uniquely representative of American character through a mythical purity, innocence, and democratic spirit. Although baseball often has represented these things, it also has failed in some ways to deliver on its promises to the nation, and politicians are often eager to exploit baseball's rhetorical and mythic meanings, especially when they need to bolster their own images. Thus, it seems to me that an ostensibly innocent game of t-ball on the White House lawn is, far from being separate from politics, an overtly political gesture, one designed to evoke the ideal symbols of the nation even as many of those symbols have been called into question at a time of war.

I won't belabor the point, but I hope you might see that the political significance of baseball lies in more than just the construction of an easy photo-op for an embattled president. Rather, as the "national pastime," baseball continues to serve as a rhetorical resource in the affirmation of particular cultural values. Because U.S. policy in recent years has loudly trumpeted the superiority of these values, while at the same time demonstrating behaviors that would appear to undermine them, it is easy to see why some would view the White House t-ball outing to be political.

If it is of further interest to you, I'd be happy to discuss it with both you and Golic. My contact information appears below this message. In the meantime, thanks for reading and keep up the good work.

Sincerely,

Michael L. Butterworth

I'll let you know if I hear back from them.

UPDATE, JULY 28, 2008: No word back from Mike & Mike. I'll try again another time...