by: Carl Lamarre
Writer, LatinTRENDS.com
For the past couple of months, Latino baseball players and fans have voiced their disdain towards Major League Baseball’s Commissioner Bud Selig’s decision to have the 2011 All Star Game in Phoenix Arizona; especially after the controversial the SB 1070 was created. The law has been designed to target potential undocumented immigrants. It has become so problematic to the point that players have even considered possibly boycotting the league’s all-star game next year if the location wouldn’t change.
Boycotts have already taken place in a few stadiums such as the New York Mets’ Citi Field, Yankee Stadium, Tampa Bay’s Tropicana Field, and National’s Field in Washington DC. With 27% of the MLB consisting of players of Latino descent, Selig would have a huge problem in his hands if players opted to walk away from the league’s biggest game of the season next year.
Chicago White Sox manager, Ozzie Guillen – who spoke passionately about the lack of respect given to Latino players weeks ago – has publicly voice his displeasure with the league’s decision to keep the game in Arizona. “Nobody sees those guys getting up at 4 a.m. to go to work on the farm, picking all kinds of stuff and leaving at 6 o’clock in the afternoon. Nobody complains about that. Leave those guys alone. Help them…They cannot live without us (immigrants). Put it that way. They’re workaholics. And this country can’t survive without them.”
St. Louis Cardinals All Star Albert Pujols, also backed up his fellow Latinos by saying: “I’m opposed to it. How are you going to tell me that, me being Hispanic, if you stop me and I don’t have my ID, you’re going to arrest me? That can’t be.”
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