My opinion about this jersey are consistent with my opinion on all of the iterations of the Stars and Stripes hats, the camo MLB hats and the USMC hats and jerseys.
I’ve been writing for the last 3 or 4 years on this site about the conflation of patriotism (including the military) and sports and why the trend is disingenuous to the causes it has been reported to support.
The opening to this article at Uni – Watch from earlier this year does a good job at almost poetically explaining my frustration. If you can’t open the link, it shows a picture of a Dominican player for a Canadian baseball team wearing a jersey that celebrates the American military.
Before I continue, I have to explain that I’m not anti-military or anti-American. Part of the problem of debating the merits of Military uniforms in sports is the person making the point against the uniforms always has to confirm that he or she is still pro-military or pro-American (which is another issue altogether that these ideas of pro-military and pro-American go together, that someone can have a view point that separates military goals from military members from American goals from American Politician goals, but this isn’t a political website).
It remains inconclusive that if sales from these Jerseys go to support the military. Even if they do, how much? Why do they have to be worn so much? How do they actually honor the military by dressing up as soldiers glorifying war? Are the Mets actually doing something to help the military or is this another form slacktivism, like updating your facebook status on Veterans day to thank veterans rather than actually doing something actively and productively accomplish the goal.
On a more political side, or maybe more personal side, its now like we are rooting for the military when the Mets play on Monday nights. War isn’t a game. It’s war. There are no analogies. Baseball players don’t go to battle on the baseball field. They don’t wear armor, they don’t have weapons. War is war and sports are sports. All major sports in America, in my personal opinion, need to stop conflating these two.
I’m thankful for the soldiers that serve and I’m glad that the Mets will be honoring them during the games this year. I don’t see the necessity of extending this to the uniforms especially when the Mets are not allowed to wear FDNY/NYPD hats on 9/11 because they aren’t sanctioned by the league and produced by an official uniform provider.
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