Like most people, John Dever awoke Sept. 11, 2001, saw horrific
images on the news and tried to make sense of what would come next.
Dever worked in the San Diego Padres’ media relations department, and he
was summoned to a meeting to decide how the team would stage a
potential game that night. The schedule had not been canceled; they
still did not understand the scope of what had happened.
At the
meeting, Dever spoke up with an idea. The traditional “Take Me Out To
The Ballgame” would sound out of place during the seventh-inning
stretch. He suggested the Padres should instead play, “God Bless
America.” The idea reached the Padres’ Larry Lucchino, who had flown
into Milwaukee for an owners meeting. He relayed the idea directly to
Commissioner Bud Selig. A tradition was born.
“It kind of became a
thing,” said Dever, who worked for the Nationals their first 10 years
in Washington. “It really ramped itself up.”
In the period since
the Sept. 11 attacks, military tributes at ballparks and stadiums have
escalated in frequency, variety and scope. Ballparks across the country
on Memorial Day will display solemn remembrance to fallen soldiers, but
sporting events do not require a holiday to host a tribute to the armed
services. On most any summer day at the ballpark — or any NFL Sunday, or
NASCAR race, or golf tournament — the military will be recognized.
The
pervasive tributes are seen by many as meaningful and important
ceremonies to raise awareness and provide public gratitude. Some take a
different view. No one doubts the merits of honoring soldiers and
creating awareness of the travails veterans face. But the ubiquity of
the tributes has led to concern that the ceremonies have become
perfunctory, accompanied by obligatory applause that fades quickly and
without thought, without a true appraisal of the costs. Does rote
appreciation inhibit genuine gratitude? Can an attempted salute, even
made with the purest motive, become an empty brand of patriotism?
“It’s
a box-checked kind of thing,” said former Army Ranger Rory Fanning, who
has become a vocal critic of America’s foreign wars. “The way you
support our soldiers is by asking them questions about what happened
when they’re overseas and to talk to them about what they did. I don’t
think sporting events is a proper place for that. There’s very little
critical discussion. These things have a way of washing over all those
questions.”
Fanning, who wrote the book “Worth Fighting For,” does
not question the intentions of fans showing gratitude to soldiers.
“It’s important to say Americans aren’t a bunch of idiots for going
along with this,” he said. He believes veterans deserve more support,
and cites a Department of Veteran Affairs study that notes 22 veterans
commit suicide every day. But Fanning also fears that ritual thanking of
troops stifles critical thinking about the military, and he believes it
leads indirectly to more soldiers in harm’s way.
“By thanking
the military as regularly as we do, number one, it assumes that what the
military is doing overseas is noble and just and right,” Fanning said. “
. . . By having this regular commercial for the military, there’s a
presumption that what happens overseas is good for the country.”
Maintaining awareness
The
counter is that visibility and awareness raised at sporting events
matters. Major League Baseball has partnered with the charity Welcome
Back Veterans for several years, starting with the prodding of New York
Mets owner Fred Wilpon. The most important part has been the $20 million
owners have raised or donated for Welcome Back Veterans, said Don Cook,
the senior vice president of philanthropy for the Robert R. McCormick
Foundation, which runs Welcome Back Veterans. But on-field tributes at
the All-Star Game and the World Series have been meaningful, too.
“One
of the worries I have, and a lot of us have, is as the two big wars
have wound down, the veterans issues will fall off the radar screen,”
Cook said. “From the public perspective, I’m very glad baseball is here
to help keep our warriors in front of people. It’s the kind of thing, we
all go back to our own lives. I worry that people start forgetting
about them, think everything is okay, the government is taking care of
them, when really it’s everyone’s responsibility. I’m thrilled MLB does
it.”
Cook does not worry about the frequency of tributes at
ballparks, because most fans attend games infrequently and don’t have a
chance to grow desensitized.
“I probably go to two games a year,” Cook said. “If I see it, I think it’s special. I think it’s wonderful.”
In
Washington, surrounded by military bases and headquarters, the
Nationals have made military tributes “part of the game-day experience
at Nationals Park,” senior manager for community relations Nicole Murray
said. “There’s a lot of reason for doing it as deeply as we do.”
In
the middle of every fourth inning, the Nationals Park scoreboard
implores fans to stand and wave their caps in salute to veterans, many
of them wounded, sitting in the Presidents Club, given free tickets by
the team. The Nationals host a four-game Patriotic Series and one game
dedicated to each of the five military branches. They frequently invite a
serviceman to hand the game ball to the starting pitcher, a tradition
approved by General Manager Mike Rizzo, Murray said.
Military
members and veterans frequently visit players during batting practice.
The Nationals also provide support out of the spotlight, such as hosting
events every Sunday home game for children of military members to make
new friends and working with the Tragedy Assistance Program for
Survivors.
Gregory McCarthy, the Nationals’ vice president for
community engagement, said the team considers the risk of going through
the motions because of the sheer number of tributes.
“But you can
also tell by the sincerity of the applause,” McCarthy said. “People
don’t have to stand and applaud. They can continue to talk and eat if
they want. They don’t. I don’t think it’s become perfunctory at all.
“Having
said that, it is incumbent upon us to keep it fresh every year. We do
make tweaks from time to time. We talked with the Secretary of the Navy
when he was here last week about some new things we can do, because we
don’t want to get stale. The tradition itself, I don’t think it will
ever get stale.”
Memorial or promotion?
The
authenticity of some military tributes at sporting events came into
question earlier this month, when the Department of Defense was revealed
to have used taxpayer money to pay teams to stage them.
Sen.
Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) brought the practice to light when he outlined how
the New York Jets accepted $115,000 from the National Guard to host
ceremonies, including one that recognized a “Hometown Hero” on the
field. Flake requested detailed information on the practice from the
Department of Defense. While the results have not returned, Flake’s
office found that teams from every league, including the NCAA, have
contracts with the Department of Defense. (A person with knowledge of
Flake’s request said the Nationals are not one of them.)
“Most of
the teams do these salutes without compensation, without a contract,”
Flake said. “Some may have a local sponsor for it, which they note, or
they just do it as a goodwill gesture from the team. It’s always a
popular item. It’s probably almost as popular as the Kiss Cam. There’s
not a lack of patriotism at these games. People stand up during the
Star-Spangled Banner, and that’s a great thing. When you have this
sponsored by the taxpayer or by the military, it just kind of, I think,
diminishes the efforts of the teams and other who do it on their own.”
Corporate
sponsorship has in some instances blurred the significance of tributes.
Before Game 1 of last year’s World Series, Major League Baseball sent a
press release extolling seven different ceremonies involving the
military. The list included the “Budweiser Our Hero Seats” and the “Bank
of America Salute.” It allows for the callous interpretation that the
ceremonies are merely advertising draped in the flag, that the soldiers
and veterans on the field are being used as much as they are being
honored.
In some cases the military has explicitly turned the
ceremonies into a recruiting tool, making the prospect of being honored
at a benefit to volunteering.
In a commercial for the Marines
released this year, the camera takes the perspective of a Marine sitting
on a subway train. A man asks, “So, why the Marines?” A montage
flashes: Playing sports in childhood. Meeting a Marine recruiter.
Pulling a rope at training. Blasting open a door in battle. Rescuing
children from a war. Finally, his hands are holding and flapping a giant
flag in the center of a massive football stadium, fireworks bursting in
the sky.