Explaining Patriotism Through Baseball

Explaining patriotism through the Yankees and Orioles, by Louis Menand and Roger Wilkins (2003):  

LOUIS MENAND: Well, let me answer the question [of what is patriotism] as an English professor would, in a roundabout and oblique way. [laughter] I grew up in New England. And when I was 21 I moved to New York City. So I've lived in New York City for 40 years. But I’ve always been a Red Sox fan. [applause] I take no credit for this, as you’ll see shortly. So I know what it's like to be an illegal alien [laughter] in a hegemonic power. And this is what it's like. You talk to New Yorkers about the Yankees, and they act as though they have something to do, personally, with the Yankees' success. And what you want to say to them is, "You just happened to be born in New York. That's all you have to do with the Yankees." It's owned by a rich guy. He goes out and buys the best player to bring to New York. They become New Yorkers, please, really, it doesn’t have to do with New York. And then you feel loyal to the Yankees. So what I want to suggest is this. Patriotism depends a little bit on a fiction. And the fiction is that we've chosen to be Americans. Now, some of us in this room, and some of us on the panel, have chosen to be Americans when they had other choices. But most of us just happened to be born here. So I want to suggest that patriotism, or love of country, a healthy way to think of it is to think this: when you're born, you're handed certain things. You’re handed your parents, you're handed the color of your skin, you're handed your gender. And you're handed the place you were born, New York City or the United States of America. Those are things that you can do something with. You can do something with those things. And virtue and character comes from choosing to do something with them rather than simply taking credit for something you had nothing to do with. That's patriotism. 

ROGER WILKINS: Well, I hate to disagree with a professor of English. Let’s talk about choice for a minute. I was handed the New York Yankees when I was nine years old, and I lived across the river from Yankee Stadium. And I was a Yankee fan for 41 years until I could no longer stand Steinbrenner. So I resigned as a Yankee fan in an op ed piece in the New York Times. And I declared myself to be a fan of the well managed, well owned Baltimore Orioles. The hardest thing I ever did was to wean myself off the Yankees. But I exercised choice, which is the essence of democracy, right? And I was exercising free will.  

The Baltimore Orioles are now owned by a worse owner than Steinbrenner, and he's destroying the team. So democracy is getting up off the ground after you've made some bad choices and believing that what you do can make the place where you live, and the people around you, a place a little better, the people a little better nurtured. And to keep on going despite getting knocked down sometimes by your choices, sometimes by fate, sometimes by politics. But always exercising the choice to make things better.