Dem
47
GOP
53
Let's start this item by talking baseball, specifically this week's MLB All-Star Game. Because the game was in Atlanta, and because we are vaguely in the ballpark of the 50th anniversary of the home run that Henry Aaron hit to break Babe Ruth's record (Aaron, a longtime member of the Braves, did it on April 8, 1974), there was a tribute to the historic home run during the game. The tribute was actually pretty impressive; the producers managed to turn the field itself into the screen upon which the presentation was projected:
There are plenty of people who were at the game, and who recorded it on their phones; you might think the presentation would not work, visually, for those present in person, but it was actually just fine.
The game in which Aaron hit the home run featured the Braves playing the Dodgers, and the tribute alternated between the calls of Braves announcer Milo Hamilton and Dodgers announcer Vin Scully. Scully had a real gift for capturing the spirit of historic moments, and so it was his reflection that was used as the climax of the presentation this week. If you were at the game, or if you were watching on TV, this is what you heard Scully say:
What a marvelous moment for baseball. What a marvelous moment for Atlanta and the state of Georgia. What a marvelous moment for the country and the world.
It is true that Scully did say that during his original call. However, that is an edited version of his remarks. Here is the full call:
A Black man is getting a standing ovation in the Deep South for breaking a record of an all-time baseball idol. What a marvelous moment for baseball. What a marvelous moment for Atlanta and the state of Georgia. What a marvelous moment for the country and the world.
That is rather different. It is clear that Scully felt the "marvelous" part was not the home run, per se, but the acceptance of Aaron's accomplishment by a Southern, mostly white fanbase. If there is any doubt about that, here is what Scully—who, by the way, called the majority of the games in which Jackie Robinson played—said about the moment after it was over:
I stood there thinking about the impact, and the more I thought about it... That's what I said when the crowd died down, about what a great moment not just Henry, not just for the Braves, not just for baseball, this was the greatest impact at home run, sociologically. I mean, here is a Black man in the Deep South getting an absolute love ovation for breaking the record of a white icon. To me, that's what made that home run the most important home run that I ever called.
So, the edit that MLB chose to make not only dishonors Aaron (who was very mindful of the racial dimensions of the whole thing), it also undermines Scully's intent. And this in an All-Star game whose overall message was "We really don't care about Georgia's discriminatory voting laws anymore." It is impossible to avoid the conclusion that Major League Baseball and its broadcast partner, Fox, were bending over backward to kiss Donald Trump's rear end in particular, and to avoid hurting the feelings of conservative white people in general, out of fear that they would not want to hear anything suggesting that racism is a real thing, even if the words came from the mouth of the politically conservative Scully, and even if the racism in question is from a half-century ago.
We note this as prelude to the news that yesterday, CBS announced that it is canceling The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. This comes less than two weeks after CBS parent company Paramount paid $16 million to settle the meritless lawsuit Trump filed against the company, and about a week after Colbert himself described the settlement as a "big fat bribe."
Given the delicate sensibilities of today's Republicans (see tribute, Hank Aaron; NPR; PBS; etc.), pretty much everyone connected the Trump settlement with the Colbert cancellation. We can actually see five basic possibilities. To wit:
It could also be one of those "a little of column A, a little of column B" situations.
CBS, for its part, insists that it's just coincidence, and the cancellation was entirely about economics. And, in the network's defense, the whole business is in trouble right now, thanks to streaming and to cord-cutting. Further, it did ax the late-night program that came after Colbert a few weeks ago. So maybe it really was just a business decision.
On the other hand, late-night programming has historically been the cheapest and—therefore—most profitable part of a network schedule, much more so than scripted primetime series. And Colbert is the highest-rated of all the late-night talk shows, outpacing The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon and Jimmy Kimmel Live!. It could be that Colbert's salary is much higher than that of his rivals, but CBS certainly didn't make any effort to fix that problem, if that is the case. Colbert was not told about the cancellation until after it was announced, and so certainly was not given the opportunity to discuss coming back on a more affordable salary. It's at least a little odd that the network would not at least make the attempt.
Ultimately, it basically doesn't matter if Colbert was actually a victim of Trumpism. What matters is that it really looks like he was. And between that, and the 60 Minutes settlement, and the All-Star Game, and the PBS/NPR funding, the message is out there: If you are a part of the media, you cross Trump and/or the Republican Party at your own peril. (Z)