OLBERMANN: Finally tonight, as promised, a special comment about yesterday and about the exploitation of 9/11. Not the exploitation by government, nor by Islamophobics, nor by political opportunists. Something simpler. No, something sadder.
When the anniversary was one week and not one decade, Major League Baseball resumed playing its games. It is an exaggeration to say baseball healed the country or helped to heal it, let alone helped to heal New York City. Any true healing has come through love and friendship and counseling and faith and heroism and public service. Some of the "baseball as healer" talk came from a good place and some of it was exploitative. As exploitative as the football commissioner who insisted he was postponing that first weekend's games for the good of the country, when, in fact, he'd just been secretly told that the restart of air traffic in this country would be so chaotic that nobody could guarantee him that all his teams could get to all his games.
But baseball's real value after 9/11 was eloquently expressed on the morning of September 18th, 2001. I had been downtown at the crack of dawn to cover the eerie reopening of Wall Street and the juxtaposition of men and women in expensive suits, tracking through streets, covered by this awful, paste-like coating of debris from the Trade Center and the still-burning, angry pyre, marching like prisoners, they were, past police and National Guard bearing machine guns. It had been a long, long day and I was preparing to go home for a while when I was approached by a policeman who obviously knew me from my time at ESPN.
"This is something," he said, as we stared at the giant American flag that was hanging from the Stock Exchange. It was still occasionally obscured by gusts of smoke, coming from the ground zero fire. I agreed with the officer.
"But I got one question for you," he asked.
I braced myself.
"Do you think the Mets can do it? Can they come back and win the division? They were really getting going 'til last week."
I remember freezing for a moment and then giving him some poorly-devised and no doubt self-contradicting answer. And then I asked him a question. How, given all he had seen, given what he'd be seeing the rest of that day and be seeing all the days and months to come -- how it could possibly matter?
"It doesn't, not really," he admitted, without much hesitation. "But I'll tell you what. All day today, I've been thinking at 7 o'clock, I can go home, put up my feet and watch the Mets and Pittsburgh and pretend for a little while that none of this has happened. So that way, it does matter."
And that, not healing, was baseball's gift and baseball's role and what baseball can rightfully claim as the part it played. It was continuity in a time of total disconnection. And for the first responders, New York's police and fire and EMS and equipment workers. For them, it was blessed relief. And that's why what happened last night was so shameful.
For four years now, Major League Baseball has exploited all the in-season holidays -- Memorial Day, July 4th, Labor Day, plus, on many occasions, 9/11 -- by having all its players wear special baseball caps. All of them made instantly for sale at the ballparks and the memorabilia shops and the online stores, and all of them changing every year. There's a new one every year.
Yesterday, caps with an American flag patch stitched on the back, to the left of the inviolable MLB logo, were worn by all clubs and by all players and managers like Ron Gardenhire, during all games. So, here in New York -- where, in 2001, first the Mets and then the Yankees honored the fallen members of, and the heroic and selfless acts of the New York Police Department, the New York Fire Department, New York EMS, Port Authority Police, New York Sanitation and several other key groups by wearing their caps during the games, during the weeks after the attacks -- Major League Baseball said the Mets could wear those caps again, but only during the pregame ceremony. They were refused permission to wear the NYPD caps during last night's actual anniversary game, the only game that was being played within a 30-minute ride from the World Trade Center.
According to team player representative Josh Thole, the Mets players debated violating the dictum anyway and wearing the caps anyway. Thole told reporters shortly thereafter, though, that the league was adamant and it was a "no-go." Evidently, the commissioners' representative reminded them that the punishment, a heavy fine, would be meted out on ownership and not the players. And, for all we know, a major fine might cause the Mets franchise to go out of business before noon tomorrow. For his part, David Wright, of the Mets, wore a police cap on the bench, during the game. His teammate, R.A. Dickey, an erudite and thoughtful pitcher, tweets that a Major League Baseball rep promptly came into the dugout in the middle of the fourth inning and took that cap away from David Wright.
These MLB individuals, who check their souls at the front desk, have been down this path before. Ten years ago, Commissioner Bud Selig and his people initially ruled the Mets and Yankees could not wear the first responders caps during the games. The Mets simply ignored the threat. MLB decided to give them a pass for a game or two and then, the Mets kept wearing them anyway and MLB wisely backed off its nonsensical decision.
Last night's ruling served only to remind everybody that, at that moment, in the nation's greatest unexpected grief in 2001, baseball's moneymaking instinct was unhindered by the blood and the destruction and the fear. At least in 2001, the sport was smart enough to shut up. Not this year. MLB first blocked the Washington Nationals from wearing military caps in tribute during a game after a disaster in Afghanistan last month. Then came this decision, complete with the kind of stupidity that would make a megalomaniac proud. They blamed it on MLB vice president Joe Torre, the native New Yorker, who wore these very caps at the end of 2001 season when he was that manager of the Yankees. Torre argued that baseball has to enforce its uniform code. I suppose that argument might not have seemed like sophistry had not, at the exact same hour, the National Football League, which is truly paranoid about its uniforms and is willing to suspend players over shoe logos and fine them over do-rags, let the New York Jets wear the very same caps on the sidelines of their nationally televised game, also just half an hour from the Trade Center.
Personally, I find it hard to believe that my friend, Torre, was anything more than the patsy for this. Frankly, though, if he was there only to take the heat, he should have resigned first. Of course, the man who took the cap away from David Wright should be banned from baseball for life and from New York City, for that matter. And the man who was ultimately responsible for this fiasco last night, Commissioner Selig, should have overruled it in mid-game. Or he should have apologized today. He has done neither. He should resign.
As an aside, I should note that I actually got a tweet last night from an idiot who wondered why I thought wearing the NYPD, NYFD, PAPD and EMS caps was somehow patriotic. Patriotic never crossed my mind. It's got nothing to do with patriotism. Three hundred forty-three firefighters and paramedics died that day. Twenty-three New York City Policemen did and 37 from the Port Authority police. This is about remembering them and acknowledging what all those who survived did for this city and the wounds that those people still have. For me, as the grandson of a New York fireman and the descendant of several others and many NYPD and regional PD, as well, this is about something deeper than patriotism. Those caps aren't flag-waving. And they aren't jingoism and they aren't political. They are memorials to dead men and women.
The Mets stadium, Citi Field, was, of course, ringed last night, with commemorations and, in particular, the "We shall not forget" logo, placed in the ad, right behind the batter's box. And it has all been rendered utterly hollow because of the crassness of the decision about the NYPD caps. It should have read, "We shall not forget, provided you pay." Because if you still haven't figured out why MLB permitted this public-relations disaster to happen, why Commissioner Selig did not get on the phone and tell the Mets they could wear those caps right away and damn the consequences, the answer is to be found in your wallet.
This is the only cap Major League Baseball permitted the Mets to wear last night. The special, commemorative one, with the flag on the sale -- on the side. It is on sale now. That's right. Baseball sold out 9/11 for $36.99. I guess we should be happy. Happy that it was an American flag and that baseball just didn't sell the space to the highest bidder.
Good night and good luck.
