Quoted: Race + Sports and Native Mascots

Photograph by Jim McIsaac/Getty

You’d think that a team represented by a giant anthropomorphized baseball would be able to remain safely outside the perennial controversies surrounding the sports world’s continued use of Native American mascots. But that probably gives the Mets too much credit. And so, of course, when the team decided that it would be a nice gesture to organize game-day festivities with the local American Indian community, it took months for someone to realize the potentially problematic scheduling of Native American Heritage Day on July 25th, when the Atlanta Braves were in town. Faced with the prospect of embarrassing their guests and not wanting to appear insensitive, the Mets followed centuries of American tradition and shafted the Native Americans.

Last week, the New York Times reported, the Mets alerted its chosen partner for the event, the American Indian Community House, about the change in plans: there would be no more traditional performances outside Citi Field for fans arriving at the game, nor would there be an announcement about the day on the Jumbotron. The team did offer to move Native American Heritage Day elsewhere on the calendar, but by that point the A.I.C.H. had spent months organizing its annual Native American Week around the July 25th game. Out of understandable frustration with the Mets organization, it decided to drop out of the event altogether.

– “Another Error at Citifield,” by Caitlin Kelly via The New Yorker