carlos delgado, one cool dude

& he may indeed not be going to the the bosox, or any other team for that matter as he is refusing to waive his no trade clause.

Kinda strange, but Delgado says if he made the 3rd out in the top of the 7th, "I'll stand there. But I'd rather be in the dugout." That's a tad cautious.

OAKLAND, Calif.

BEGINNING tonight, the Yankees will see a lot of the Toronto Blue Jays. The two teams will play 19 times in the final three months of the season. The Yankees will also see a lot of the Blue Jays slugger Carlos Delgado; they just won't see him in the middle of the seventh inning.

Though Delgado is having an off year, he remains one of the most respected players in Major League Baseball. Last March when the United States invaded Iraq, Delgado, in his own quiet way, said that for him, enough was enough. He had stood for "God Bless America" through the 2003 season but vowed not to do so this season. In an act of a simple, mostly unnoticed, protest against the war, Delgado, a 32-year-old first baseman, has chosen to remain in the dugout while "God Bless America" is played.

I'm curious to see the reaction to Delgado at Yankee Stadium, which George Steinbrenner has turned into a paean to patriotism. Some teams, including Toronto, have stopped playing "God Bless America," which was inserted into games after the attacks of Sept. 11. Most teams now play the song only on weekends or holidays.

The Yankees play it during the seventh-inning stretch at every home game. That includes tonight, when they begin a two-game series with Toronto. Delgado will probably not be standing on the field.

"I'm not trying to get anyone mad," he said Monday in Oakland, where the Blue Jays were playing the Athletics. "This is my personal feeling. I don't want to draw attention to myself or go out of my way to protest. If I make the last out of the seventh inning, I'll stand there. But I'd rather be in the dugout."

Good for him. In the world of mainstream professional sports, where cookie-cutter athletes rarely take a stand on any issue, let alone one as highly charged as a war, Delgado is a rarity. He is unafraid to question a ritual that he does not agree with. Delgado's protest this season has been so quiet, so subtle that Bud Selig, the baseball commissioner, didn't know about it until I called him to talk about it on Monday.

"When you called me today you actually startled me," he said from his office in Milwaukee. Selig later read a statement that he had prepared on Delgado's action.

"I'm in the process of getting more information, but eventually I would like to sit down and discuss it with Carlos," Selig said. "I am very sensitive to this kind of issue, both as a matter of respect for our country and for one's right to express his opinion."

I'll be watching to see how Selig handles this.

It was Selig, in the aftermath of Sept. 11, who ordered all teams to play "God Bless America," injecting a political statement into the games.

"I don't honestly think that politicizes the issue," Selig said, calling the playing of the anthem a matter of respect. "After all, we do have troops in Iraq and Afghanistan."

With all due respect to Selig, once "God Bless America" became a political statement, a player like Delgado became free to express his own political views.

His well-thought-out opposition to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is just one part of a larger issue for him. Delgado, a native of Puerto Rico, sees his protest as consistent with his earlier opposition to the Navy's use of the Puerto Rican island of Vieques as a weapons testing ground. In many ways, the United States military waged a form of war for 60 years on the tiny island, using a 900-acre site for bombing exercises.

Delgado, who grew up on the mainland, remembers older residents telling stories about bomb explosions.

"They lived in that target practice area for 60 years," he said. "They tell you stories of how, in the middle the night, a bomb blew up. I never experienced it, but I can imagine it. I can see why you might be a little hostile from time to time. "

Delgado, who was signed by Toronto when he was 16, spent two years involved in the movement to force the Navy to stop using Vieques as a testing site. The military ended the exercises on May 1, 2003. Now, Delgado and others want the United States government to help clean up the economic, psychological and health messes it left behind. He has contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars toward that effort and solicited other Puerto Rican celebrities to join the campaign against the aftereffects.

"It's still in the environment, it's still in the ground, it's still in the water." he said. "That's why we've got the highest cancer rate of any place in Puerto Rico."

Delgado doesn't feel the troops should be in Iraq, much as he felt the United States should not have been in Vieques. He won't stand in support of movements he does not believe in.

Delgado's decision to ignore "God Bless America" has the support of the Toronto organization, even after he said last week that he would not agree to a trade in this, the final year of his contract. Paul Godfrey, the team's president and chief executive, supports Delgado even though he disagrees with his antiwar position. Godfrey criticized the Canadian government for not sending troops to Iraq and was the force behind the team's decision in 2003 to play "God Bless America'' at the Skydome, which the team has now stopped.

"I have no problem with what Carlos did," he said in a telephone interview from Toronto. "Carlos didn't hold a placard and stop traffic. He didn't impede the game because he's not that kind of guy. He's been total class in the community almost from the day he arrived."

Even Blue Jays catcher Gregg Zaun, who strongly supports the war effort (he vowed never to buy another record by the Dixie Chicks after they criticized President Bush), supports Delgado.

"He's a pretty quiet guy and it's been quiet," Zaun said. Delgado has never raised the issue with teammates, Zaun said.

"He has his opinion and he's decided to use that as his platform," Zaun said. "Whether or not I agree with him, I salute him."

Even as he talked about his silent protest this week, Delgado emphasized that he didn't want the demonstration to become a distraction. At the same time, Delgado said he was not backing down from any criticism that comes his way.

"It takes a man to stand up for what he believes," Delgado said Monday. "Especially in a society where everything is supposed to be politically correct."

"I am not pro-war; I'm antiwar," he said. "I'm for peace."

Take that out to the ballgame.

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

Does that Beelzebud know how to cover both butt cheeks?

i freaked out my date a few weeks back by singing the whole thing, i kinda shocked myself!

CONSERVATIVE RANT:Well, my initial, gut reaction was something along the lines of "Stand up for the friggin' song, you ungrateful bastard." But the more I got to thinking about it yesterday, I guess my main issue with his protest is that he is politicizing a song that isn't inherently political. It seems that if this is the point he wants to make, he should do it during the National Anthem. What message are you really sending if you protest "God Bless America"? Do you want God to not bless America? Of course, protesting during the National Anthem would bring on a shit-storm of Sinead O'Connor proportions, only bigger because more people care about Puerto Rican ballplayers than Irish cue-ball rock singers.

The bigger question may be why doesn't he want to be traded to a contender.

i used to know some of the verses of O Canada in french, because they alternated languages when they played it at the montreal forum...

there were some boo birds out yesterday for delgado but not as many as i was expecting. i missed the last half of the game, but i'm assuming he sat for "god bless..."

I once had a Mets game companion beg me to stand for the Banner so I wouldn't draw attention (and that was around 1995). I usually stand now, but keep my cap stowed til the game begins so I don't have to take it off.

Papers report there were chants in the YS lower deck of "USA!" when Delgado lined out to begin the top of the 7th last night.

A utility player who feels as Carlos does wouldn't stand a chance in making the same gesture, agreed?

Ah well, at least they booed Cheney during "God Bless America."

I guess I can appreciate the distinction between the national anthem and a song Selig ordered stadiums to play that is probably directly linked in Delgado's mind to a misguided War on Terror.

I read that Times article, though, and thought "wtf is the national anthem if it's not a 'paean to patriotism?'"

i think your every day joe-shmo utility player probably wouldn't even draw nearly as much attention as a name player like delgado. if it was, say, dave berg refusing to stand for "god bless.." i don't think anyone would notice/care.

How? I certainly agree that the playing of it has become a political issue, but from the beginning, I don't think this was so. I felt like it was gesture toward the healing of the nation after the tragedy of 9/11. When Bud initiated it, his reasoing wasn't that he supported a war in Iraq. Now having said that, did we really need this gesture to bleed over into the following baseball season? Probably not. The prolonging of the ritual into the time of the war has caused some people to associate the two due to their shared root cause.

The use of the song may have caused it to acquire a political meaning, but taking the song by itself as a political statement seems like a stretch to me.

Yeah, I was working on a post addressing all that when I got called away to a meeting.

ps is it 'ungrateful' to disagree with the current political line?

No, but in my mind "GBA" isn't about the current political line. It's about loving America and lots of people who love America pay lots of money to see ballgames that make these guys insanely wealthy. When these wealthy guys protest loving America, that's where the ingratitude comes in.

John Adams, 2nd President, signed the Treaty of Tripoli (June 7, 1797). Article 11 of that treaty states:
“The government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion.”

Please take your Christianity out of my baseball. Thanks.

In the big inning, God created the Heavens and the Earth.

“...Thirteen governments [of the original states] thus founded on the natural authority of the people alone, without a pretence of miracle or mystery, and which are destined to spread over the northern part of that whole quarter of the globe, are a great point gained in favor of the rights of mankind.”

“The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg. . . .”

“Reason and persuasion are the only practicable instruments. To make way for these free inquiry must be indulged; how can we wish others to indulge it while we refuse ourselves? But every state, says an inquisitor, has established some religion. No two, say I, have established the same. Is this a proof of the infallibility of establishments?”

2001 TOR 62.4
2002 TOR 62.6
2003 TOR 83.3
2004 TOR  1.4

Delgado and "God Bless America"
2001 TOR Stood
2002 TOR Stood
2003 TOR Stood
2004 TOR Sat

Correlation does not mean causation, but I think we can make an exception!

How silly... it's a bunch of corporate robbers who want $6 for bad beer, and blast ads at me for 9 innings, asking me to tolerate a demo of religious-nationalist triumphalism. That's political, it's just not a First Amendment issue.

btw, Irving Berlin (a great songwriter, GBA is one of his worst) arranged for royalties of the song to go to those homophobic knot-tyers, the Boy Scouts of America.

And 3 years on, let's stop Al Qaeda and dump the sentimental post-9/11 "woe is us" ceremonial garbage.

I'm fine with songwriters extolling non-existent deities performing acts to or upon America, if they wish. I'm not cool with those values (which are political as much as religious) being forced on people in a public setting or even a television broadcast, whether by MLB, Fox Sports, the US Government, George Steinbrenner or Nancy Faust at the organ in Comiskey. Yes, my buying a ticket for a baseball game in a sense condones or endorses that, but that does not imply explicit endorsement. Certainly people who attend baseball games are not all required to drink beer, why must they be required to sit through a song with lousy sentiments?

And this is where the conversation breaks down because I knew from the beginning of the thread that this was the root of my disagreement with the prevailing opinion here.

abortion?

gays in the military?

dianetics?

capital punishment? - against
abortion? - against, but not against the right to choose
gays in the military? - don't care
dianetics? - STRONGLY against. Keep that Manson-esque shit away from me, thanks.

no.

yes.

where¿

no thank you.

In fact, I think the Astros had quit playing it because I don't remember it being played at the game I want to in May. I remember being somewhat surprised that it was being played at the ASG.

Selig's order to play it was a craven attempt to do what's popular; that's all.

It's one of the many reasons I don't like games at Yankee Stadium, though not one of the main reasons. Those would be Yankee fans, expensive ticket prices, crap food, etc.

(by Woody Guthrie)
This land is your land,
This land is my land,
From California
To the New York Island,
From the redwood forest,
To the Gulf stream waters,
This land was made for you and me.

As I was walking,
That ribbon of highway,
I saw above me
That endless skyway,
I saw below me
That golden valley.
This land was made for you and me
I've roamed and rambled
And I've followed my footsteps
To the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts
And all around me a voice was sounding
This land was made for you and me

The sun comes shining
As I was strolling
The wheat fields waving
And the dust clouds rolling
The fog was lifting a voice come chanting
This land was made for you and me

As I was walkin'
I saw a sign there
And that sign said no trespassin'
But on the other side
It didn't say nothin!
Now that side was made for you and me!

In the squares of the city
In the shadow of the steeple
Near the relief office
I see my people
And some are grumblin'
And some are wonderin'
If this land's still made for you and me.

Nobody living can ever stop me
As I go walking
That freedom highway
Nobody living can make me turn back
This land was made for you and me

My favorite line... somehow I don't see a bunch of monopolists OKing it for singalongs.

either that or bruce mccullough's "that's america" should be our anthem. i'll do did those lyrics up.

Some people look at a flag, swaying in the breeze of the White House and say, "That's America."
Whenever I see an American flag hung in a window of a basement apartment by guys who have better things to do with their money than buy curtains, I say, "That's America, to me."

In America, there are fifty-one states. Or maybe it's eighty by now. Does England count? I'm not quite sure.
The one thing I am sure of is, if I'm standing in a warehouse beside a timeclock, and a guy is punching in his best friend who's too hungover to get out of bed, I'm standing in America.

The makeover capital of the world.

The place where every young man has to answer in his heart the question: What do you love more, your girlfriend, or your car?
Where that young man can buy a beat-up car for three hundred dollars, but have to spend a thousand to insure it.
The land where even a paperboy can option the film rights to a book.

America.

In America, a woman on an assembly line works out her overtime in her head to infinity, and at the exact same moment, her husband gets into a car crash because he was looking at a girl in a tube top.

America.

A land where spelling doesn't count, but people's pets do.
Where else can you get a job riding a whale at marineland?

The land where a guy's girlfriend breaks up with him over the phone, so he takes a gun, and kills the principal.
Everyone's sad until they get the day off.
Next week, another guy, another gal, another, "We can still be friends" phone call. Whuh-oh! The *assistant* principal gets killed. And everyone is sad because they *don't* get the day off. Because he was only the assistant principal.

America.

A land of opportunity. Yes, that great lumbering beast that journeys tirelessly and stops only to eat a clubouse sandwich, pick its teeth with a matchbook cover, and fall asleep with the tv on.
America. A place for Americans.

ps. i think a big reason not many people are booing him is because everybody, regardless of their feelings on the war, is sick of that damn song being played. talk about fun-sapping.

oh wait, are you being a pedantic fukk??

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1090447813731&call_pageid=968867503640&col=970081593064

Anyone else remember his first partial year in Toronto? '94--the Jays were coming off their second WS win, Rickey Henderson had gone back to Oakland, and, at 22, they gave Delgado the left field job out of spring training. He'd had big years in the minors in '93 and '94.

By April 19, the Jays' 14th game, he'd hit 8 home runs:

48 AB, 8 HR, 18 RBI, .271/.352/.771

April 20 to June 8, when he got sent back to Syracuse:

82 AB, 1 HR, 6 RBI, .183/.352/.244.

Saw his name in a story this morning (he's got some connection to the A-Rod case) and started remembering all that.

I remember that well. No idea why they didn't bring him up again later in the season, and Gaston dicked him around for most of '95 because he wasn't a gritty veteran. That might have cost him a shot at 500 career HRs.

Don't forget, there was no later in the season--'94 was the strike year.

Looked at the '95 roster, and they definitely could have put him back at catcher--all they had was Sandy Martinez, a non-entity, and a decrepit Lance Parrish. Olerud was still at first and getting on base, though his power was AWOL that year; the outfield was pretty set with Carter, White, and a good rookie year from Shawn Green, and Molitor was at DH. I know what you mean, though--he was ready in '96, so there's no clear reason why he wouldn't have eventually performed well in '95 (.318/.403/.610 at Syracuse), but they gave up on him after May.

(Still remember what happened in '94--they started throwing him nothing but curves at a certain point, and he just couldn't hit a curveball then.)

There were still two months left in the season in '94 -- the team was going nowhere so they could have sent him down for a month and then brought him back (he raked in AAA the rest of the year).