Baltimore Orioles: The Colin Kaepernick conundrum in baseball and sports

What type of affect are Colin Kaepernick’s actions having on MLB, the Baltimore Orioles, and in all of sports as a whole?

Adam Jones of the Baltimore Orioles was one of the few baseball players to respond to Colin Kaepernick and his National Anthem protestation. You might have noticed that this was one of the few sports columns that didn’t cover this in some way when it first broke. That’s because first off the Orioles were and still are in the middle of a playoff race. But also because it’s tough for me to separate my own personal thoughts and beliefs and to keep journalistic integrity when it comes to matters involving the flag or the national anthem.

But I’m going to take a shot at it here, as the Orioles prepare to continue their hunt for October. As you might have gathered from above, I’m not a fan of anyone disrespecting our flag or anthem under any circumstances. To me there are just some things that are more sacred than anything else – that’s one of them.

However there’s little doubt that Mr. Kaepernick and others are within their rights to do it. Furthermore, I might even support the root of their cause in trying to stand for social justice. Heck, I suspect that the majority of the good and honest police officers (which is the vast majority of officers on forces nationwide) do as well. The last thing they want are a couple of bad apples giving them all bad names.

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But in effect that message is lost on folks such as myself, as all we see is our nation’s flag being disrespected by people using the very laws that the flag represents to do so. However that aside, it’s not something we’ve seen in MLB as of yet. Although it’s something that’s been addressed, very specifically by Adam Jones. While Jones said that he intended to stand for the anthem, he supported Kaepernick’s right to sit or kneel

In truth, he has no choice – that’s a right guaranteed to Kaepernick by the constitution. And in fact, if you want to see a country where “patriotism” is forced, look no further than North Korea. However the more controversial aspect of Jones’ comments were that nobody in baseball has followed suit because “baseball is a white man’s sport.” He received some backlash for those comments, but to his credit he attacked them head-on. And if his remarks were ever a story, that story has now passed.

Interestingly, we’ve seen this “phenomenon” spread to other NFL sidelines, and even to other sports. And again, my point would be that there’s a better way of protesting very legitimate causes than by disrespecting our nation overall. Last night the Atlanta Falcons and New Orleans Saints opted to join hands at midfield during the anthem in a show of unity for the cause of social justice. That’s exactly the type of thing that gets the point across without disrespecting the flag or the country as a whole.

However now I’m starting to hear stories about high school teams pulling stunts like laying on the ground during the anthem, among other things. So…is there ever a point where this will run it’s course? Are players/people doing this simply because it’s fashionable at this point, or because they want to prove a point? Because at this point, I question whether or not it’s still news when someone pulls this stunt.

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And there are some folks out there who will say what do you expect people to do to get society’s attention and so forth. Colin Kaepernick did get everyone’s attention, and did create a national discussion. But in defending Kaepernick’s right to do what he did, even President Obama said that it might have been best to leave the flag or the anthem out of the protestation – since people had died for that over the years. However again, I’m NOT in anyway saying that Mr. Kaepernick doesn’t have the right to do what he’s doing. He totally does – I just wish he did it in another way.

And again, before people say that he wanted to do something that would kind of shock society, keep in mind that Martin Luther King (the greatest civil rights leader in history in my view) accomplished a lot more by marching from Selma and speaking at the Lincoln Memorial for the March on Washington. And mind you, all of his marches somehow included the American flag.

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Are we now having the national debate that Kaepernick wanted? Yes I suppose we are. Mind you, police brutality and race relations are a problem in America, and there can be no question about that. But I feel that we should look to the example of Dr. King to fix those issues as opposed to the image of a multi-millionaire sitting on the bench during the national anthem.