Major League Baseball’s place in the history of the battle for equality and civil rights is an embarrassment. Black ballplayers were banned from the major leagues for over 75 years until 1947 when Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier. Nothing can make that right, but people of conscience are demanding that Major League Baseball (MLB) move the 2011 All-Star Game from its currently scheduled site in Arizona to “Anywhere else!” in protest of the recent passage of the racist anti-immigrant SB1070.

The World Cup has caught on here in the USA. The soccer matches are on flat screen televisions in sports taverns across the country. The right wing xenophobes that denounced soccer find themselves in a pickle. Americans, like everyone else in the world, actually enjoy the game.

Joy. Not just for communists, but anyone. You could see it when New Zealand’s Winston Reid surprised everyone with his first international goal as time ran out on the match against Slovakia. It was a good goal, but his joy, that of his teammates and ‘Kiwis’ everywhere was unsurpassed. Celebration at its best! This is repeated over and over at each World Cup.