Southpaw #10: Eight Reasons to Give Thanks
Not everything in SportsWorld is awful, and we want to recognize the things that aren’t.
Dear readers,
Leftists have a hard time showing gratitude, and we at Southpaw are certainly no exception. But while there’s a lot for the left to be angry about—in sports and beyond—it’s worth remembering that joy, as much anger, sustains political movements and drives them forward. So in the spirit of Thanksgiving, we’ve compiled a list of things in the sports world that we’re thankful for this year. If you feel so moved, leave a comment telling us about something sports-related that brings you joy and we’ll include it in next week’s newsletter.
-Ian and Calder
Eight People/Places/Things We’re Grateful For This Year
1. Wildcat strikes
The NBA’s wildcat strike in August was one of the few bright spots for sports in 2020. Following the lead of Black players and coaches, teams across the league refused to take the floor to protest the police murders of Jacob Blake, George Floyd, and Breonna Taylor. Players in the WNBA, MLB, and MLS quickly struck in solidarity with the NBA, grinding professional athletics to a standstill for close to 48 hours.
The action not only drew massive public attention to the killings themselves, but it also forced the leagues to break their carefully-curated silence on issues like systemic racism, police brutality, and the mistreatment of Black players. The strike didn’t blossom into the sort of massive industry-wide disputation that some predicted, but it did show that athletes are willing to withhold their labor to advance racial justice, and we should celebrate that.
2. Sarah Fuller
On Saturday, Sarah Fuller, a senior at Vanderbilt University, became the first woman to play in a Power Five football game when she launched the second-half kickoff during the Commodores’ game against Missouri. After the game, Fuller, who is a goalkeeper on Vanderbilt’s championship women’s soccer team, had this to say to ESPN: “I want to tell all the girls out there that you can do anything you set your mind to. Like, you really can. If you have that mentality all the way through, you can do big things.”
We’re tempted to highlight the darker side of this headline—Vanderbilt only invited Fuller to participate because its entire special teams unit was sidelined after being exposed to COVID—but in the spirit of gratitude, we’ll stop there. Sarah Fuller deserves all the credit in the world.
3. Free agency
Free agency is now the stuff of sports talk radio babble, but it’s worth remembering that free agency as we know it is the fruit of one of the most successful organizing efforts in the history of sports. Before the 1970s, the “reserve clause” in most baseball contacts allowed teams to unilaterally extend players’ contracts or trade them to other teams, effectively stripping players of any meaningful control over the sale of their labor or the trajectory of their careers. Beginning with St. Louis Cardinal Kurt Flood’s lawsuit in 1970, players waged a three-decade long battle in the courts, on the field, and through union actions to wrest control of their lives and labor from owners. Though still imperfect today, free agency is a testament to the power of collective action in sports and a reminder that real power still belongs to the athletes.
4. Sue Bird
Sue Bird, a four-time WNBA champion, had a real moment in the sun this year while leading the Seattle Storm to the bubble title. As the vice president of the WNBA Players’ Association, Bird took every chance she could get to speak about racial inequality and social justice in sports and beyond. Yet even amid a chorus of protest, Bird’s candor and pointed criticisms stood out. In an interview with CNN in October, Bird (who is married to USWNT star Megan Rapinoe) took fans and the sports media to task for tolerating activism from some athletes—like the “cute little white girls” on the UWMNT—but not from the others, like Black and queer women in the WNBA. “Even though [Megan and I are] female athletes playing at a high level, our worlds, you know, the soccer world and the basketball world, are just totally different,” Bird told CNN. “Women's soccer players generally are cute little white girls while WNBA players, we are all shapes and sizes ... a lot of Black, gay, tall women ... there is maybe an intimidation factor and people are quick to judge it and put it down.” In typical fashion, Bird was unafraid to push the envelope, challenging the complacent, self-congratulatory tone that has settled over the national conversation about athletic activism. Bless you, Sue Bird.
5. People dunking on Tommy Tuberville
As we’ve written before, Tommy Tuberville, the former college football coach and incoming Republican senator from Alabama, embodies everything that is vile and stupid about professional sports’ alliance with reactionary politics. The fact that Tuberville, who lacks any political acumen or policy expertise whatsoever, will actually wield legislative power is a disgrace. Our only consolation is that the country is quickly realizing that Tuberville is a moron and a fraud, and the ensuing dunks have been incredible.
We can tolerate Tuberville for now, but if Dabo Swinney ever wins public office, we’ll be calling for total revolution.
6. Subscription-based media
It’s not a particularly fun time to be working in the media, but a handful of subscription-based models are giving us hope. Aside from providing yours truly with a platform, subscription-based models support some of our favorite sports-and-politics outlets, including the incredible Burn It All Down podcast and Defector. For better or for worse, these services are dramatically democratizing online media, giving anyone with a computer a way to earn money for their writing while challenging media gatekeepers who have historically made it difficult for marginalized and radical writers to find a national platform.
Of course, this democratization cuts both ways—good when it supports marginalized writers, bad when it supports neo-Nazis—but on the whole, it has been a boon for the left. Even as recently as ten years ago, leftists had to rely on a handful of magazines to find political coverage that challenged DNC orthodoxy. That there are now plenty of left-leaning newsletters like this one is certainly cause for celebration. But ultimately, the success of the subscription-based model depends on consumers’ willingness to pay for content they value, so if you think a publication is doing good work, support it!
7. The life of Diego Maradona
As our friend Dave Zirin (we’re thankful for his insights, too) wrote in The Nation this week, Diego Maradona, after reaching the pinnacle of his sport, remained an outspoken critic of American imperialism and a champion of the poor in the Global South and around the world. After visiting Pope John Paul II in 2016 and hearing his crocodile tears about poor children, Maradona quipped, “I was in the Vatican and I saw all these golden ceilings and afterwards I heard the Pope say the Church was worried about the welfare of poor kids. Sell your ceiling then, amigo, do something!”
Maradona’s life serves as a necessary corrective to a certain strand of discourse around athletic activism. According to this discourse, professional sports serve as the paradigmatic example of economic and social meritocracy, allowing anyone with talent and drive to transcend their economic situation through hard work and selfless dedication. The flip side of this narrative, though, is athletes who do transcend their economic station become examples of the system’s inherent justness, thereby forfeiting their ability to criticize either the sporting world itself or the broader economic reality that makes it possible.
Maradona showed how hollow and self-serving that narrative really is. He lived a life of fame and excess, but even amid the never-ending tabloid drama, he remained a fearless champion of equality and justice.
8. Our subscribers (especially the non-sports fans in the bunch)
Please forgive the cringe for a moment. We are aware that if you subscribe to other newsletters, you are likely receiving similar expressions of thanks around this time of year. And while we try mostly to stay above the fray on the cheesy newsletter stuff, we also have our moments of sentimental weakness.
The two of us would happily write this newsletter every week even if nobody read it, so it’s delightfully redundant to get feedback and support every week. We’re especially honored when those of you who aren’t big sports fans read and enjoy what we have to say. We’ll continue to do our best to bring you something bigger than the box score.
RODNEY’S ROUNDUP
Do you want to read about . . .
. . . sports leagues sending the wrong message about COVID restrictions? “Sports Are Making COVID Look Like No Big Deal,” by Will Leitch in New York Magazine (November 24, 2020).
. . . Washington’s Black football fans finding solidarity in the team’s new brand? “When Your Hometown Team Gets a New Identity,” by Hannah Giorgis in The Atlantic (November 26, 2020).
. . . one of the strangest meetings in the history of the world? “N.B.A. Players Meet With Pope Francis on Social Justice Efforts,” by Jonathan Abrams in The New York Times (November 23, 2020).
. . . a health care worker’s perspective on testing athletes? “As thousands of athletes get coronavirus tests, nurses wonder: What about us?” by Kent Babb in The Washington Post (November 27, 2020).
Kim Ng and the WNBA players who made Kelly Loeffler as infamous as she should have been already!