South Africa and Bangladesh Share the All Star Spot Light
Submitted on Tue, 07/11/2006 - 4:21am
Pittsburgh rolls out red carpet for All-Stars
By MICHAEL COWDEN The Associated Press
PITTSBURGH - As Coast Guard boats armed with machine guns patrolled below, New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter, dapper in a tailored suit and sitting on a shiny pickup, rode across a bridge to the All-Star game like a conquering hero.
Thousands cheered - and some jeered - as player after player crossed over the Allegheny River on, appropriately enough, a red carpet rolled out across the Roberto Clemente Bridge from the downtown Pittsburgh to the stadium.
"Baseball is the best game, and this is the epitome of baseball. Other sports try to imitate it, but they cannot," said Vince Conte, 44, a lawyer from Montclair, N.J., in town for his sixth All-Star game.
The parade capped off five days full of baseball-related events, including museum retrospectives, interactive exhibits and parties. Local leaders called the festivities a success.
"We're really shaking off a lot of the old stereotypes that Pittsburgh is a smoking industrial city that is rundown and doesn't have anything going on," said Kevin Evanto, a spokesman for Allegheny County Chief Executive Dan Onorato.
Steven Prefontaine, 38, of Nottingham, N.H., said he was impressed by the city.
"It's gorgeous. It's clean. The place looks wonderful," said Prefontaine, who sported a Red Sox cap and baseball glove. "And PNC is by far the most beautiful park I've ever seen, and I love Fenway."
Preliminary numbers indicate that about 50,000 people from outside the Pittsburgh area visited the city for the All-Star weekend, said Joe McGrath, president and CEO of VisitPittsburgh, which promotes tourism and business travel to the region. The All-Star game, FanFest and other events drew at least as many local attendees and likely brought about $52 million into the regional economy, he said.
FanFest wrapped up Tuesday with clinics hosted by New York Yankees All-Star third baseman Alex Rodriguez and former Baltimore Orioles All-Star shortstop Cal Ripken. There was also a live auction of sports memorabilia, including a baseball that Babe Ruth hit for a home run in the first All-Star game, which sold for $805,000.
"The sale price places it among the most valued pieces of American sports memorabilia," said David Hunt, president of Hunt Auctions Inc., the Exton-based sports memorabilia auction company that conducted the sale.
A bat that the legendary Yankees slugger used to hit his 59th home run in 1921 sold for $483,000.
The All-Star hoopla, however, did not meet with approval from everyone. The Pittsburgh Anti-Sweatshop Community Alliance planned a rally on the bridge during the game to criticize conditions in some factories that make Major League Baseball apparel and accessories.
"Jackie Robinson and Roberto Clemente would be pleased" with the action, said co-founder Dennis Brutus, a professor emeritus of African studies at the University of Pittsburgh. Robinson was the first black player to breach baseball's color barrier. Clemente died in a plane crash while trying to deliver relief supplies to earthquake victims in Nicaragua.
A Major League Baseball spokeswoman said an investigation had found no basis for the accusation.
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Kenneth Miller 412/670-0937
July 11, 2006 Tom Kertes 410/499-2878
Pittsburgh City Council to Consider Proclamation in Favor of Sweatfree All Star Game on Game Day
Pittsburgh Fans Demand Pirates Go to Bat for Sweatfree Baseball
PITTSBURGH - Twanda Carlisle, City of Pittsburgh City Council Member, has told the Pittsburgh Anti Sweatshop Community Alliance (PASCA) that she plans to present a proclamation at today’s 10:00 AM council meeting that will urge the Pittsburgh Pirates to do the right thing by going to bat for sweatfree baseball and human rights. The proclamation will be presented 10 hours before the first pitch of the July 11, 2006 All Star Game at PNC Park and will start a countdown for the Pirates to meet the demands of the team’s fans. Fans are demanding that the Pirates adopt a sweatfree baseball proclamation of their own – before the opening pitch of tonight’s All Star Game.
The City Council proclamation will call on the Pittsburgh Pirates to stand with fans and workers by ensuring that all the factories sewing Pirates and All Star apparel at the 2006 All Star Game be sweatshop-free. PASCA and the Black Political Empowerment Project (B-PEP) requested the proclamation as a way for the city to demonstrate its commitment to sweatfree baseball and human rights. The proclamation will be co-sponsored by Doug Shields. Council President Luke Ravenstahl, who represents the city on the Sports and Exhibition Authority, is expected to co-sponsor as well.
On Saturday July 8, 2006 members of PASCA and B-PEP held an historic meeting with the Pirates for consideration of the “We Are A Global Fam-il-ee” All Star Proclamation, the proclamation that PASCA is asking the team to adopt. PASCA and B-PEP explained how the conditions in the global apparel industry are beneath the standards of Pittsburgh’s baseball fans. Violations of fundamental human rights and core labor standards, as set out by the International Labor Organization, were covered as well. PASCA and B-PEP reminded the Pirates that Pittsburghers expect that the Pirates will represent the city’s high standards for human rights when dealing with baseball’s role in sweatshops and poverty in the US and around the world. Pittsburgh fans are calling on the Pirates to go to bat for sweatfree baseball by calling on the rest of the league to do the right thing and take a stand for human rights.
At the July 8 meeting, Pirates representatives were joined by an advisor from Major League Baseball Properties (MLBP) who challenged PASCA’s review of factory conditions and boasted about the corporate conduct of MLBP’s licensing partners. The advisor made these assertions despite clear evidence to the contrary. A detailed report with examples such as Nike and Reebok, companies that admit pervasive problems throughout their supply chains has been delivered (visit sweatfree.org for detailed documentation of sweatshop conditions). The Workers Rights Consortium, an organization of 158 colleges and universities which requires disclosure of factory locations and factory monitoring independent of manufactures and licensees, has offered its assessment of factory conditions and offered to help follow up an All Star anti-sweatshop proclamation from the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Following today’s City Council meeting PASCA members will be talking to baseball fans about baseball’s sweatshops as fans arrive at PNC Park via the Roberto Clemente Bridge for the All Star Game. “Pittsburghers have every reason to be hopeful that the Pittsburgh Pirates will use the 10 hours between the council hearing and the All Star Game’s opening pitch to decide to represent Pittsburghers in a meaningful way by signing on to a proclamation for baseball to take a stand against sweatshop apparel. This is the way Pittsburghers expect to reflect on the 2006 All Star Game,” said Dennis Brutis, co-founder of PASCA.
At 4:30 PM on July 11, 2006 PASCA and 2006 Anti Sweatshop All Stars from around the country will gather at Freedom Corner Pittsburgher’s premier Civil Rights monument and the place where the National Garment Workers Federation of Bangladesh delivered testimony about working conditions in factories that produce Pirates apparel on October 16, 2004 and begin a march to Roberto Clemente Bridge. The life and death of Roberto Clemente exemplify the Civil Rights Bridge we are building to the floor of the global sweatshop and the humanity Pittsburghers expects to share with the whole world at the 2006 All Star Game.
At 6:00 PM the Anti Sweatshop Carnival will begin on Roberto Clemente Bridge and around the statues of Roberto Clemente, Willie Stargell, and Honus Wagner. This carnival signifies the beginning of several new initiatives that will extend the Civil Rights of Pittsburghers directly to workers in the global apparel industry and high light factories sewing baseball apparel.
Background
The Pittsburgh Anti Sweatshop Community Alliance is committed to supporting the global apparel industry union organizing drive because the lives and expectations of workers in other parts of the world are directly connected to our own. PASCA is under the umbrella of Azania Heritage International, an organization that celebrates STEVE BIKO DAY each year. PASCA co-founder Celeste Taylor serves on the board of SweatFree Communities whose staff and board members have been critical to the development of campaigns such as this.
The 2006 Anti Sweatshop All Stars include, the United Workers Association of Baltimore, who work at Camden Yards, the Up State NY (Cooperstown) branch of the Industrial Workers of the World, Sonny Scroggins and the Bias Busters of Kansas and Tom Lewandowski of the Fort Wayne Central Labor Council.