Jesus, I Gotta Pee!

      Notice anything missing in this picture?

     Yup. Paying customers in the A-hole Seats at the new, Disneyfied Yankee Stadium.

     There's something else missing in Yankeedom, too: the freedom to ignore flagrant displays of manipulative jingoism and religious dogma in a facility that was built with lots of public, secular funds.     

     Excerpted from The Nation:

     One day last August, Bradley Campeau-Laurion just wanted to leave his seat and use the bathroom at the old Yankee Stadium. The 30-year-old New York resident had no idea that nature's call would lead him down a road to perdition where he would be accused of challenging God, country, and the joys of compulsory patriotism at the ballpark...

     Not only do the Yankees expect fans to stand during the singing of patriotic songs, but during the Bush era they virtually mandated fan support for the Iraq War, all the while extorting tax breaks and other public subsidies from city, state and federal governments to build their new $1 .5 billion cathedral of baseball. (Separation of sports and state anyone?) For the Steinbrenners and the high-rollers who occupy Yankee Stadium's $2,500 (editor's note: actually, $2,625.00) top-shelf seats, this kind of power patriotism wedded to corporate welfare must be sweet as champagne...

     All Campeau-Laurion did was try to go to the men's room during the seventh-inning stretch. In swooped two New York Police Department officers working security detail, who reportedly roughed him up and threw him out of the ballpark. Now Campeau-Laurion has filed a civil suit against the the city, the cops and the team for violating his rights...

     (Campeau-Laurion said): "I don't care about 'God Bless America.' I don't believe that's grounds constitutionally for being dragged out of a baseball game... I simply don't have any religious beliefs... It devalues patriotism as a whole when you force people to participate in patriotic acts,..."It devalues the freedom we fought for in the first place."

     This ugly incident raises a series of inconvenient questions: why does America feel compelled to bind sports to patriotic ritual? Why are publicly funded facilities like stadiums used to promote private religious or political beliefs? And given the putrid start of the Yankees's season, shouldn't management be more concerned with what's happening with the players than with the fans? All should stand with Campeau-Laurion until we get some answers.

     Although Campeau-Laurion's run-in occurred last year at the real Yankee Stadium, there has been no change in club policy, and Yankee fans continue to be serenaded with both the standard pre-game "Star-Spangled Banner" and the additional "God Bless America." The latter--along with "Take Me Out To The Ballgame"--has remained a fixture of the seventh-inning stretch since immediately after 9/11. 

     It seems that according to Yankee brass, you'd be well-advised to take care of your business when you're buying your peanuts and Cracker Jack, and after you're expected to acknowledge an apparently pinstriped entity blessing the land of the free and the home of the brave.

     Yup, baseball's here. Go Dodgers.