Each year the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression, located here in Charlottesville, announces their annual "Jefferson Muzzles" on April 13 in honor of its namesake's and our University founder's birthday. The Muzzles are awarded to those who have "forgotten or disregarded Jefferson's admonition that freedom of expression cannot be limited without being lost."
This year's winners included Attorney General John Ashcroft and the 107th United States Congress, among others. Although there was no sports related Muzzle handed out this time around, the world of sports has provided the Thomas Jefferson Center with a prime candidate for its 2004 awards: National Baseball Hall of Fame President Dale Petroskey.
A former Assistant Press Secretary in the Reagan administration, Petroskey cancelled a planned celebration of the 15th anniversary of the movie Bull Durham on account of previous anti-war statements made by two of the movie's stars--Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon.
The event to celebrate one of the greatest sports movies in American cinematic history had been planned for months, and was to take place on April 26 and 27 at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y. Petroskey cancelled the commemoration, however, citing his fear that Robbins and Sarandon would use the Hall of Fame as a forum for their anti-war views.
Petroskey admits that he neglected to ask Robbins or Sarandon if they were planning to discuss the war in Iraq. Both Robbins and Sarandon have since claimed that they were not even aware they were going to be speaking at all, and if they had, they would have only addressed the topics of baseball and the movies --not the war.
Rather than request that the actors keep politics out of their speeches, Petroskey succumbed to a knee-jerk reaction by simply canceling the event.
Ironically, in his attempt to keep things apolitical, his canceling the Bull Durham celebration politicized the now non-existent event more than Robbins or Sarandon ever could have. Petroskey's decision has received more attention from the national media than if the actors had gone on the anti-war tirade Petroskey so feared.
In a letter addressed to the outspoken acting couple, Petroskey once again showed his affinity for irony. Amid claims that Robbins and Sarandon were exploiting their popularity and stardom to perpetuate their points of view, Petroskey claimed that public antiwar views from such prominent figures in American culture "could put our troops in even more danger."
No matter what your view on the war is, its seems illogical to claim that those who stand against the war are putting the soldiers in more danger those who support their deployment.
Moreover, it seems that it is Petroskey--not the actors--who is abusing a position of power to suppress an opposing view. On the same note, it demands notice that this is the same Hall of Fame President who invited current Presidential Press Secretary Ari Fleischer to speak at the Hall a few months ago to discuss the current "War on Terrorism." So much for not politicizing the Hall, huh?
Although I certainly can understand Petroskey's fear of politics overshadowing American cinema and baseball, his decision to cancel the festivity is unacceptable.
As renowned baseball writer Robert Kahn wrote to Petroskey in a letter canceling his scheduled August appearance at the Hall, "By canceling the Hall of Fame anniversary celebration of Bull Durham for political reasons, you are, far from supporting our troops, defying the noblest of the American spirit. You are choking freedom of dissent. How ironic. In theory, at least, we have been fighting this war to give Iraqis freedom of dissent."
I couldn't have said it better.
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