Baseball Begins to Listen to Sweatshop Foes
Submitted on Sat, 07/15/2006 - 12:53pm
Dave Zirin & Derek Tyner - The Nation, July 14, 2006.
Major League Baseball's All-Star game is supposed to be a breezy exhibition of the sport's brightest stars. It's also a place for baseball's corporate patrons to be wined, dined and reassured about the current state of the game.
But at this year's All-Star game in Pittsburgh, the party was crashed by a bull-headed group of about seventy activists determined to change the way the corporate game is played. The Pittsburgh Anti-Sweatshop Community Alliance (PASCA) held a spirited rally outside Tuesday's game at PNC Park followed by a march to Roberto Clemente Bridge. The procession was a celebration of something anti-sweatshop activists had never been able to claim with Major League Baseball: Real progress.
For several years, PASCA has tried to get the Pirates to address the unfair working conditions in some of the factories where their apparel is produced. For several years they've been treated the way other National League teams treat the Pirates: like a doormat. But as the All-Star Game approached, PASCA's dogged work finally paid off.
Read the rest of the story at http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060731/zirintyner