Sportswriter for NBC embarrasses himself by saying the American flag is political

Since televised sports has become a political platform — with Colin Kaepernick refusing to stand for the national anthem and ESPN vowing to keep its leftwing politics a priority during broadcasts — a lot of people are tuning out. Watching sports used to be an escape from the drudgery of the day. Now, the constant propaganda doesn’t allow the viewer to turn off their thoughts and and simply enjoy a game.

Making things worse is people like Craig Calcaterra, a writer at NBC Sports, who recently tweeted something so bad you’d think it was a parody. But it wasn’t:

"Will you keep politics out of sports, please. We like sports to be politics-free" pic.twitter.com/Mx3omxcNhu

— Craig Calcaterra (@craigcalcaterra) April 16, 2017

Proving he wasn’t joking, Calcaterra added an entry to his blog to offer “A few words on baseball, giant American flags and patriotism:”

This morning I woke up and saw that a friend had posted a photo on my Facebook timeline. It was of the opening ceremonies for the first game at the Braves new ballpark Friday night.

The photo was of the large American flag unfurled on the field for the National Anthem. In case you could not see it, on every one of the large video boards was a digital image of an American flag. It was quite the scene…

The writer goes on to call this display of patriotism more of a political performance than a spontaneous display of national pride:

But there has been some opportunism and performative patriotism at play at the ballpark as well. Most notably in the pay-for-patriotism scandal from a couple of years ago in which it was revealed that the government had paid teams to promote patriotic and pro-military initiatives for propaganda and recruitment purposes. Less craven than that but still calculated is the degree to which corporate sponsorship has seeped into patriotic activities. For the 2014 World Series, American flags were provided to every fan at the entrance of Kauffman Stadium. Major League Baseball made sure we knew in the press release, however, that they were “presented by Bank of America, the Official Bank of Major League Baseball.” There are many examples of this sort of thing.

When Calcaterra received pushback on Twitter, with some asking how a flag is political, he responded, “People often wrap themselves in the flag in order to achieve political ends.”

He also stated, “Maybe a flag, in and of itself isn’t always political. A two-acre flag with a military flyover is saying something very specific, however.”

Calcaterra also spoke a lot about how patriotism rightfully boomed after 9/11 but insists after 16 years, it’s given way to “conspicuous patriotism.” He was again confronted about this very thing on Twitter.

Rik Krahn said, “I think there was a time when love for country wasn’t considered political. And a lot of people would like to return to that time.”

Calcaterra responded, “Getting there requires people to accept that those who question our leaders and do not support all military ventures can still be patriots.”

There’s another time people would like to return to; when sports reporters weren’t making everything political and simply reported on the game, the players, the clubs, and the trades. If you want to spew political propaganda, go work for The New York Times.

Photo credit: Beverly & Pack via Foter.com / CC BY