Latest / The Right Time with Bomani Jones / Howard Bryant on How 9/11 Changed Sports Forever | 09.11

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Howard Bryant on How 9/11 Changed Sports Forever | 09.11 · The Right Time with Bomani Jones

0:05
Speaker 1: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the right time. My name
0:09
Speaker 1: is Beaumont Jones. Thanks for listening wherever you get your podcast.
0:11
Speaker 1: Thanks for watching us on YouTube. Subscribe, like, rate us,
0:14
Speaker 1: review us, give us five stars. You only give us
0:17
Speaker 1: four stars. I'm inclined to believe you are a hater.
0:20
Speaker 1: I will introduce this with a little more somber tones.
0:22
Speaker 1: I don't try to come in like real big on it,
0:24
Speaker 1: but we're talking about 25 years since 9-11, so I
0:26
Speaker 1: don't exactly feel like it's time to be like it.
0:28
Speaker 2: Coming up next!
0:30
Speaker 1: So coming up next, we have our good friend joining
0:33
Speaker 1: us here live and direct from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts,
0:36
Speaker 1: Howard Bryant. What's going on?
0:39
Speaker 2: Oh, man, how are you doing?
0:40
Speaker 1: Hey, man.
0:40
Speaker 2: I think it's a smart move, by the way, Bo,
0:42
Speaker 2: to not be all enthusiastic about it. I mean, do
0:45
Speaker 2: you even want to call it an anniversary? Just mark
0:47
Speaker 2: the time, right?
0:48
Speaker 1: Yo, it's exactly it.
0:49
Speaker 2: Yay, anniversary. Like, woo!
0:51
Speaker 1: It's kind of like I talk about the internet has
0:52
Speaker 1: made it a thing. Like, people don't remember Biggie's birthday,
0:55
Speaker 1: but they remember the day he died. So it's a
0:58
Speaker 1: party every year on the day he died. I'm like, nah,
1:00
Speaker 1: let's learn his birthday, baby. Like these are not, this
1:03
Speaker 1: is not a celebratory time. I guarantee you this, his
1:06
Speaker 1: mama wouldn't throw in no party on the ninth. That
1:10
Speaker 1: was like.
1:11
Speaker 2: When we were doing, when we would do NPR, you'd
1:14
Speaker 2: have these horrible stories about death and, you know, famine
1:19
Speaker 2: and the rest of it. And then, And now it's
1:21
Speaker 2: time for sports. I'm like, can we transition this a
1:23
Speaker 2: little differently? Yes. Yes.
1:25
Speaker 1: But I wanted to have you on to talk about
1:27
Speaker 1: like 25 years since 9-11, particularly in sports in part.
1:32
Speaker 1: And this will be something we get to a little later.
1:34
Speaker 1: I'm not exactly sure how the rest of our industry
1:37
Speaker 1: will have handled this. I know how they would have
1:39
Speaker 1: handled this 25 years ago when we had a little
1:42
Speaker 1: bit more of a. concerned for kind of looking back
1:44
Speaker 1: at these historical moments and putting them in context. Boomers
1:47
Speaker 1: love that. And by the way, makes great content. People
1:50
Speaker 1: generally enjoy it. We don't really do it anymore. But
1:53
Speaker 1: this is a topic that you honestly, for these 25 years,
1:57
Speaker 1: have written a lot about that people can check on
1:59
Speaker 1: in your books, which is kind of how things changed
2:02
Speaker 1: in and around sports with 9-11. And you were covering
2:06
Speaker 1: the Yankees that year. It was, which is interesting for
2:09
Speaker 1: me because I always say that 911 hits me a
2:12
Speaker 1: little differently because I was in California. And so this
2:16
Speaker 1: didn't happen at 912 in the morning or whatever it
2:18
Speaker 1: happened at 612 and I had nowhere near a television
2:20
Speaker 1: I was in a place with no telecommunications whatsoever. And
2:24
Speaker 1: somebody came in and told me what happened. And I
2:26
Speaker 1: honestly thought he was lying because it sounded like science fiction,
2:29
Speaker 1: like War of the Worlds. And I went on about
2:31
Speaker 1: my day. And then it was like, oh, wow, this
2:33
Speaker 1: is a really big thing that's been going on all
2:36
Speaker 1: day long that I've been too wrapped up in my
2:38
Speaker 1: own shit to get to. You, on the other hand,
2:41
Speaker 1: are around New York City.
2:43
Speaker 2: Oh, I was in New York City. I was living
2:45
Speaker 2: on 49th and 10th. And I remember at 8.45 in
2:49
Speaker 2: the morning when the first tower got hit Um, I
2:53
Speaker 2: was just waking up. It was a Tuesday morning. And
2:56
Speaker 2: I remember what was kind of wild about that was
3:00
Speaker 2: the speed of the calamity.
3:03
Speaker 1: Right.
3:03
Speaker 2: I mean, within a half an hour, no cell phones
3:08
Speaker 2: are working. Like it was hard to get through to anybody. And,
3:14
Speaker 2: you know, you saw like disaster. I mean, it was
3:17
Speaker 2: really incredible, um, for all kinds of different reasons. Like
3:23
Speaker 2: you just saw, you just saw life in real time,
3:27
Speaker 2: just act out in, you know, on a block by
3:29
Speaker 2: block basis, you know, like all of a sudden the
3:31
Speaker 2: cab drivers were like, Oh, you want to go over
3:33
Speaker 2: the bridge? $ 300. Like that was that element of it.
3:36
Speaker 2: And then on the other hand of it, you had
3:38
Speaker 2: all the first responders, just, just everybody just racing down downtown.
3:43
Speaker 2: It was chaos. It was. And then of course here
3:46
Speaker 2: I am covering baseball feeling completely insignificant. Who cares about
3:51
Speaker 2: baseball at that moment? Back then, they actually had pay phones.
3:54
Speaker 2: Pay phone wasn't going to work. Pay phones always work.
3:57
Speaker 2: Couldn't get through to anybody.
3:59
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I feel like with major moments, they're the
4:02
Speaker 1: kinds that are the where were you when dot dot
4:05
Speaker 1: dot moments, but then there is the whole next level
4:09
Speaker 1: of it, and you just don't get that many of those,
4:10
Speaker 1: which is everything changed at this moment.
4:13
Speaker 2: Well, this one's both.
4:14
Speaker 1: Yes.
4:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, this one is 100% both, and The thing about
4:19
Speaker 2: 9-11 and sports, there's probably, I mean, off the top
4:24
Speaker 2: of my head, I'd have to really sort of parse
4:25
Speaker 2: it down, but off the top of my head, there
4:28
Speaker 2: are three moments that change the trajectory of sports in
4:31
Speaker 2: the 20th century into the 21st century. One is integration.
4:36
Speaker 2: Two is television. And three is 9-11. And obviously, if
4:42
Speaker 2: you want to extend that out, you could probably go
4:44
Speaker 2: into the pandemic. But up to that point, This is
4:50
Speaker 2: the moment. Whenever I think about 9-11, I always think
4:53
Speaker 2: about it from the standpoint of each generation has its
4:57
Speaker 2: seismic moment that shifts the whole culture, that changes everything.
5:01
Speaker 2: With my parents' generation, it was World War II. With
5:07
Speaker 2: my generation, it was a Cold War. And with this generation,
5:10
Speaker 2: it's 9-11. It looks, feel, sold, everything was different from
5:15
Speaker 2: that day forward.
5:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, and It's interesting where you say the sports feel
5:20
Speaker 1: so insignificant in that moment. And of course, that was
5:23
Speaker 1: a message that we spilled. And then give it a week, right?
5:28
Speaker 1: Or however long it was before sports got back on
5:30
Speaker 1: the road. And then it was the complete opposite, right?
5:32
Speaker 1: It was the most important thing. Right. Not just is
5:35
Speaker 1: it important. To me, people immediately tapped into... The entirety
5:41
Speaker 1: of the reason that sports are allowed to exist on
5:44
Speaker 1: the plane that they do with the support they do
5:46
Speaker 1: with the attention they do with the funding they do
5:48
Speaker 1: everything else, which is sports have always served the interest
5:54
Speaker 1: of whatever the dominant regime is of the time, whether
5:58
Speaker 1: it be government on whatever level. Right. Like it's part
6:00
Speaker 1: of the appeal of college sports in this country. is
6:03
Speaker 1: the affirmation of pride and region or whatever that institution
6:06
Speaker 1: happens to be. But the whole point and the reason
6:09
Speaker 1: of it becomes a celebration of certain parts of our society.
6:14
Speaker 1: And it feels like when 9-11 hit across the board
6:18
Speaker 1: and also specifically as it relates to New York City,
6:21
Speaker 1: sports now became a celebration of the nation itself, of
6:27
Speaker 1: the symbols of the nation itself.
6:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, sports, it was tribal before, and then it was tribal,
6:35
Speaker 2: and then it became completely tribal, where you could feel,
6:39
Speaker 2: I was afraid, to be honest. I remember, we were
6:43
Speaker 2: out a week. 9-11 hit on a Tuesday, and the Yankees,
6:48
Speaker 2: we ended up driving. That was the other thing, too.
6:50
Speaker 2: What was kind of funny was how easy you recognized
6:55
Speaker 2: the things you take for granted were not to be
6:58
Speaker 2: taken for granted, which was, okay, season's going to open
7:01
Speaker 2: up in, it's going to reopen in Chicago a week
7:04
Speaker 2: from today. I'm not getting on a plane. How are
7:08
Speaker 2: we getting to Chicago? And so all of that infrastructure
7:11
Speaker 2: suddenly came into question because no one wanted to get
7:13
Speaker 2: on an airplane. And what was fascinating to me about
7:17
Speaker 2: that whole, that whole period that, I mean, and it
7:20
Speaker 2: was a period, it was, it was at least a
7:22
Speaker 2: month or two, because the second piece of this was
7:26
Speaker 2: now we got to find Osama bin Laden, right? So
7:30
Speaker 2: everybody was on high alert that there was the next
7:33
Speaker 2: shoe going. And let's not also forget, during that same
7:35
Speaker 2: time period, you had the anthrax scare happening too. So
7:38
Speaker 2: there was this real feeling that the entire country was
7:42
Speaker 2: under attack, because it was. But the piece of it
7:46
Speaker 2: to me that was really, that changed it all, was
7:50
Speaker 2: the injection of politics into sports permanently. And I don't
7:54
Speaker 2: think anybody knew that was going to happen at the time.
7:56
Speaker 2: World War II athletes wore patches to... recognized the fact
8:01
Speaker 2: that the country was at war. Vietnam, same thing, but
8:03
Speaker 2: to a lesser extent. But there was recognition that American
8:07
Speaker 2: soldiers were fighting around the world. 9-11 was all of
8:12
Speaker 2: that times a thousand. That the entire approach of sports,
8:18
Speaker 2: which was to avoid politics because everybody was under the
8:21
Speaker 2: same umbrella. We're all Yankee fans and we're all Cowboys
8:24
Speaker 2: fans or Patriots fans or whatever. That all went away
8:29
Speaker 2: And it was replaced by a real angry, dangerous sort
8:36
Speaker 2: of sense that now we're going to go back to
8:39
Speaker 2: sports and we're going to put 40,000 people in one
8:45
Speaker 2: place who are enraged right now that there's an enemy
8:50
Speaker 2: out there that we can't see. And where is that
8:56
Speaker 2: fervor going to release? It's going to release at ballparks.
9:00
Speaker 2: And the sports industry itself recognized, even as you were
9:04
Speaker 2: talking about moment versus change, from that day to 25
9:09
Speaker 2: years later, the entire business of sports, how sports was
9:13
Speaker 2: sold to you, was changed cosmetically. And it's never gone back.
9:17
Speaker 2: After the Gulf War, we saw Whitney Houston out there singing,
9:20
Speaker 2: and then the Duke and And whoever they were in Vegas,
9:25
Speaker 2: you know, in UNLV, they had their U.S. patches on
9:27
Speaker 2: during the Gulf War. But once that war ended, those
9:30
Speaker 2: patches disappeared. Those American flags after 9-11 showed up and
9:36
Speaker 2: they haven't gone away. Yeah.
9:37
Speaker 1: And it's funny because there is a book called Brand
9:40
Speaker 1: NFL by Michael Loriart that I recommend that people check out.
9:45
Speaker 1: It really talks about how the NFL has been promoted
9:48
Speaker 1: and marketed throughout its time. And one point, that it
9:51
Speaker 1: makes is that what the NFL really caught on to
9:53
Speaker 1: in the way the other leagues did not is that
9:55
Speaker 1: it wedded its product to symbols like the American flag
9:59
Speaker 1: in a different way. way. And once they made it
10:01
Speaker 1: a red, white, and blue league, that always popped, right?
10:03
Speaker 1: Like for that league that always worked as a mechanism
10:07
Speaker 1: of sale. For baseball, like you would see the red, white,
10:11
Speaker 1: and blue like bunting around the field for like game
10:14
Speaker 1: one of the World Series.
10:16
Speaker 2: During the postseason.
10:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, for the All-Star game. Yeah, but it was never
10:19
Speaker 1: in all the time thing, they started breaking out God
10:23
Speaker 1: Bless America. It's never gone away. I still don't know
10:28
Speaker 1: the words to God Bless America. Like God Bless America
10:30
Speaker 1: was not a, at least to me, that wasn't like
10:32
Speaker 1: a song everybody knows, right?
10:35
Speaker 2: And why did they do that, Bo?
10:37
Speaker 1: Why did they do that?
10:38
Speaker 2: They did that because after the towers went down, Bobby
10:43
Speaker 2: Valentine was the manager of the Mets. John Franco, you know,
10:48
Speaker 2: New York dude. was closer on the Mets. And the
10:51
Speaker 2: Mets went to Shea Stadium and they opened up a
10:54
Speaker 2: relief center in the parking lot. And in very, very
10:59
Speaker 2: fast time, the Mets were being associated as New York's team.
11:04
Speaker 2: The Yankees were like, no, let's let the authorities handle everything.
11:08
Speaker 2: And we're the Yankees and we're going to take a
11:10
Speaker 2: step back. And by the way, let's not forget, both
11:12
Speaker 2: Roger Clemens and Andy Pettit hightailed it out of there
11:14
Speaker 2: in their private planes the minute those towers hit. They're like,
11:16
Speaker 2: we're getting out of here. And they bolted. But the
11:19
Speaker 2: New York guys, the Mets, they stayed. And the idea
11:28
Speaker 2: that the Mets were more patriotic than the Yankees, that
11:31
Speaker 2: they were more New York than the Yankees, enraged George Steinbrenner.
11:36
Speaker 2: And he was like, well, we got to do something.
11:39
Speaker 2: So they went out and got one of the great
11:41
Speaker 2: Irish tenors, Ronan Tynan, to sing God Bless America in
11:44
Speaker 2: the seventh inning. And then the Yankees went to the armory.
11:48
Speaker 2: Then they went to the firehouses. And suddenly, nobody likes
11:50
Speaker 2: to admit this. And of course, Joe Torre, New Yorker,
11:54
Speaker 2: Brooklyn guy, his sister is a nun. All of a sudden,
11:58
Speaker 2: you know, the Yankees and the Mets were sort of
12:00
Speaker 2: battling for the hearts and minds of grieving New Yorkers.
12:04
Speaker 2: And George was like, this is going to be, like,
12:08
Speaker 2: this is our staple. So suddenly you've got Ronan Tynan
12:11
Speaker 2: out there singing God Bless America during the seventh inning
12:15
Speaker 2: of all the games. And then, of course, because baseball
12:19
Speaker 2: also saw football out there with all the mini American
12:22
Speaker 2: flags out there and Joe Andrews running out with two
12:24
Speaker 2: flags with the Patriots against the Jets and the whole thing.
12:28
Speaker 2: Then baseball made God bless America mandatory for all the teams. Mandatory.
12:33
Speaker 2: So now you're starting to see all of the sports
12:37
Speaker 2: trying to tap into the red, white and blueness of
12:42
Speaker 2: the business of the game. And now each sport is
12:45
Speaker 2: trying to, in baseball especially, in addition, let's not forget,
12:50
Speaker 2: you had 1,800 firefighters killed in whatever that number is.
12:59
Speaker 2: It's not that number, but over 1,000. And then the
13:02
Speaker 2: police as well. So now you also, in addition to
13:05
Speaker 2: the red, white, and blue of America fighting Osama bin
13:08
Speaker 2: Laden and al-Qaeda, now you also have the police and
13:14
Speaker 2: first responders, but especially police as heroes and military as heroes.
13:19
Speaker 2: So now this sport, where sport was unimportant to your point,
13:24
Speaker 2: now this is the staging ground for America's emotions. And
13:30
Speaker 2: this was the place where everybody was like, we can't
13:31
Speaker 2: have sports. We can't have politics involved here. And so
13:35
Speaker 2: now you've got the cops singing the national anthem. You've
13:39
Speaker 2: got the flags and the flyovers, and each sport is
13:42
Speaker 2: now using this place. And by the way, when I
13:45
Speaker 2: was speaking to some of the military guys, when I
13:47
Speaker 2: was working on my book, The Heritage, they were saying like, hey,
13:50
Speaker 2: they recognized opportunity. Where else are we going to get
13:53
Speaker 2: this kind of recruitment opportunity? We're at war right now.
13:57
Speaker 2: And if this is a moment where people come together,
14:01
Speaker 2: there are going to be people watching these games that
14:04
Speaker 2: are going to want to serve their country too. So this,
14:07
Speaker 2: so suddenly sports became the land grab for patriotism. You know, both,
14:13
Speaker 2: both commercially, emotionally, and then, of course, militarily.
14:17
Speaker 1: All right, I want to start with the God bless
14:19
Speaker 1: America part because I did not know that story about
14:22
Speaker 1: the back and forth between the teams. This was the
14:24
Speaker 1: result of economic competition in the market of patriotism.
14:28
Speaker 2: That's right.
14:29
Speaker 1: I don't know if anybody else ever feels this way,
14:31
Speaker 1: but I was at a Yankees game a couple weeks
14:33
Speaker 1: ago and God bless America, and I was like, are
14:36
Speaker 1: you supposed to stand for this? Because it's a song.
14:40
Speaker 1: It is not the national anthem. It is not a
14:44
Speaker 1: prescribed hymn.
14:46
Speaker 2: It's a song.
14:47
Speaker 1: And I was like, wait, I got to stand up
14:48
Speaker 1: for this too? Because I ain't standing up for Lee Greenwood.
14:51
Speaker 1: You understand what I'm saying? I would not do that
14:55
Speaker 1: under those circumstances. And I was like, oh man, this
14:57
Speaker 1: is all just.
14:57
Speaker 2: Kind of- Not only did the Yankees make it mandatory,
14:59
Speaker 2: but the Yankees threw fans out who didn't stand. Get
15:04
Speaker 2: ejected from the ballpark if you didn't stand. Some usher
15:07
Speaker 2: could come by and toss you out of the ballpark.
15:10
Speaker 1: It is a- Wow, that is crazy. It is amazing
15:12
Speaker 1: how instant this all was too, right? Like, I don't
15:15
Speaker 1: know if you could have convinced me in the year
15:18
Speaker 1: 2000 that this almost like Orwellian response would have been
15:24
Speaker 1: the result just a year later.
15:26
Speaker 2: It wasn't even a year. It didn't even take a year.
15:29
Speaker 1: Right.
15:29
Speaker 2: I mean, I think it's really important to remember the
15:33
Speaker 2: timetable and everybody is talking about, this is a really
15:35
Speaker 2: important conversation, Beau, from a lot of, you know, when
15:37
Speaker 2: you're thinking about where we are today and the amnesia
15:40
Speaker 2: of Americans. Because they're all talking about Donald Trump and
15:43
Speaker 2: we're using the words like authoritarianism and fascism and this
15:46
Speaker 2: and that. This surveillance state started back then. I mean,
15:49
Speaker 2: you weren't in New York. I was in New York.
15:52
Speaker 2: And that's where if you see something, say something. Here
15:55
Speaker 2: we go. All in the name of patriotism. And Rudy
15:58
Speaker 2: Giuliani was the mayor and America's mayor. And every single
16:06
Speaker 2: basic civil liberty was now a threat. What, do you
16:11
Speaker 2: want the terrorists to win? Of course we have to
16:12
Speaker 2: search your bag. But you have a reason to search
16:14
Speaker 2: my bag. We have to search your bag. And going
16:17
Speaker 2: through the airports. Remember, you could go through the airports.
16:19
Speaker 2: You'd be able to hang out at the airport. You'd
16:21
Speaker 2: be able to go hang out at the gate. You
16:22
Speaker 2: couldn't do that anymore. You couldn't, you know, this is where,
16:26
Speaker 2: at first, you had to take a sip of water
16:29
Speaker 2: if you brought water to the gate. I'm sorry, when
16:31
Speaker 2: you're going through security. If you had liquids with you,
16:34
Speaker 2: you had to drink some of it so everyone knew
16:37
Speaker 2: that it wasn't like nitroglycerin or something, right? Then they
16:41
Speaker 2: just got rid of all that. Now, no liquids at all.
16:43
Speaker 2: Then they had to start coming back because people were like, well,
16:45
Speaker 2: what about my saline? You had to pack all of
16:48
Speaker 2: that stuff. And now you've got the travel sizes where
16:52
Speaker 2: you have to, you know, it's got to be a
16:53
Speaker 2: certain amount. You know, all the lotions of mine that
16:58
Speaker 2: have been confiscated. I lament that, right? I mean, all
17:01
Speaker 2: of that stuff. And so the speed of the sports
17:05
Speaker 2: really did help that too. Because you're at this place,
17:09
Speaker 2: and anybody who's ever been around a mob, whether your
17:13
Speaker 2: team won the championship and y'all are flipping cars over,
17:16
Speaker 2: or whether you want to beat somebody up, like the
17:18
Speaker 2: power of the mob and 40,000 people chanting USA. I mean,
17:24
Speaker 2: that stuff gets scary. And it was a release, and
17:29
Speaker 2: a lot of people called it something else. They used
17:32
Speaker 2: to call it healing stuff. But on the other side
17:35
Speaker 2: of healing, there was revenge. You know, that's when you
17:38
Speaker 2: started seeing a lot of American flags and a lot
17:40
Speaker 2: of ethnic restaurants up on 8th Avenue and 9th Avenue. Like, hey, hey, hey.
17:44
Speaker 2: It was like, do the right thing, right? You know,
17:47
Speaker 2: we black too, right? I mean, it was definitely that.
17:50
Speaker 2: And all of the things that we talk about today
17:56
Speaker 2: in terms of fascism and the rest of these things,
17:58
Speaker 2: I mean, certainly there's an extra legal sense of what's
18:01
Speaker 2: happening in the White House now. But this idea... that
18:05
Speaker 2: your civil liberties had to be sacrificed in the name
18:08
Speaker 2: of patriotism, in the name of your country and the
18:10
Speaker 2: things that we stood. A lot of that comes out
18:12
Speaker 2: of 9-11 and that hasn't gone away. It's only intensified
18:17
Speaker 2: no matter who the president was. Yeah.
18:20
Speaker 1: Now, the other thing that you mentioned there that I
18:21
Speaker 1: think was important and something that you've written about extensively
18:24
Speaker 1: also is the police became the military. after 9-11, in
18:30
Speaker 1: terms of the- So it became the same thing. Yeah, right,
18:33
Speaker 1: in terms of the level of reverence that's expected. And
18:35
Speaker 1: to a degree, it's understandable because taking what happened in D.C.
18:41
Speaker 1: out of it and just looking strictly at the New
18:43
Speaker 1: York part, those were normally the heroes of war is
18:49
Speaker 1: the military. And that wasn't the case in this one.
18:52
Speaker 1: This was a, and it was an attack on an
18:55
Speaker 1: urban area, right? On a municipality. The heroes became police.
19:00
Speaker 1: They became fire department and the likes. And so they
19:03
Speaker 1: became elevated in a very, very important way. Now, like
19:07
Speaker 1: the elevation of the fire department, you know, nobody's really
19:11
Speaker 1: got a problem with that.
19:12
Speaker 2: Right? Yeah, nobody did.
19:14
Speaker 1: Like, fire departments probably have the highest Q ratings of
19:18
Speaker 1: just about any of these things, right? They run into
19:20
Speaker 1: burning buildings and stuff. Okay, and they'll be beating people up.
19:23
Speaker 1: They don't run in and set your shit on fire
19:25
Speaker 1: because they mad at you. No, they go in and
19:27
Speaker 1: they put out fires.
19:28
Speaker 2: And they try to save your life.
19:30
Speaker 1: Yes, the police occasionally do those things. And also, occasionally,
19:36
Speaker 1: tune you up, give you that wood shampoo, everything else.
19:39
Speaker 1: But they became... capital T, capital P, the police. Not
19:45
Speaker 1: the band, but they became something that everybody, at least
19:49
Speaker 1: for a short time, term, you treated them like they
19:52
Speaker 1: were the flag, basically. It became a gigantic change, I think,
19:59
Speaker 1: in terms of the way the... I mean, there'd always
20:02
Speaker 1: been an expectation of how to deal with the police
20:04
Speaker 1: or what the police represented, but not quite like 9-11.
20:07
Speaker 1: And sports and arenas never treated them.
20:10
Speaker 2: No. And also, you have to make this link. And
20:14
Speaker 2: by the way, before we continue on, my number was
20:17
Speaker 2: way up. 343 firefighters were killed. And then so it's
20:21
Speaker 2: about 400 first responders total. The 1,800 number I was
20:26
Speaker 2: thinking about was the number of unclaimed, that went missing,
20:30
Speaker 2: that bodies were never discovered after the 3,300 people were
20:36
Speaker 2: killed in the towers. But yes, I mean, that was...
20:42
Speaker 2: The idea now that we are going to conflate police
20:46
Speaker 2: and military puts us a lot of where we are
20:50
Speaker 2: today and also with some of our previous conversations. I
20:54
Speaker 2: think the arc of Colin Kaepernick is totally different without
21:00
Speaker 2: 9-11 because Colin Kaepernick is essentially the heir to the
21:09
Speaker 2: protest for Rodney King that never really happened in sports.
21:14
Speaker 2: But now you're doing it 15 years after 9-11 where
21:18
Speaker 2: the police are heroes. I mean, they are undisputed heroes
21:23
Speaker 2: that you are now, you've incorporated them into the selling
21:26
Speaker 2: of your sport. Without 9-11, perhaps he's treated very differently
21:34
Speaker 2: because sports doesn't now have that layer of the hero
21:38
Speaker 2: worship of police, military, et cetera, where the two are
21:41
Speaker 2: the same, where criticizing the police, a domestic institution, questioned
21:50
Speaker 2: your patriotism. The link between patriotism and police was virtually
21:56
Speaker 2: nonexistent pre-911. I mean, this changed, it changed everything.
22:02
Speaker 1: Well, I think that raises a question. Would he have
22:04
Speaker 1: positioned his protest in the way that he did prior
22:09
Speaker 1: to 9-11, right?
22:10
Speaker 2: Also a great question.
22:11
Speaker 1: Part of it is the response. I was going to say,
22:13
Speaker 1: how is it that one could so seamlessly make the
22:17
Speaker 1: transition from a protest against the police to being a
22:20
Speaker 1: protest against the military? And the answer is, he chose
22:23
Speaker 1: to protest the police because as an affront to the
22:26
Speaker 1: national anthem, as an extension.
22:28
Speaker 2: Of the flag, all of these things. Because they're on
22:30
Speaker 2: the field because of 9-11.
22:32
Speaker 1: Right, right. So like, how connected do all those things become?
22:37
Speaker 1: Because that also leads to the other part, which is,
22:40
Speaker 1: and I wondered this prior to 9-11, did the flag
22:43
Speaker 1: belong to the military? before 9-11 and all of its
22:47
Speaker 1: adjacent wars. Because that's another, obviously the big social thing
22:49
Speaker 1: about 9-11 is this country was at war for 20-something years.
22:52
Speaker 1: Just with people. Some of the warring, you know, like
22:56
Speaker 1: what we do during war just stuck around and became
23:00
Speaker 1: permanent fixtures in part because if you felt like we
23:02
Speaker 1: need to do God Bless America because we had war,
23:04
Speaker 1: we were at war for 20 years straight after that.
23:06
Speaker 2: Well, that's right. And on top of that, the question
23:08
Speaker 2: we used to ask George, you know, we used to
23:10
Speaker 2: ask Steinbrenner, when are you going to stop playing this song?
23:15
Speaker 2: And the question had been, well, when the wars are over. Well,
23:18
Speaker 2: the wars are over now. We're not fighting, you know,
23:20
Speaker 2: we're fighting in Iran now. But back then it was
23:24
Speaker 2: Iraq and Afghanistan. And those wars are over, but God
23:26
Speaker 2: bless America is still there. It has now become, it's
23:29
Speaker 2: embedded now. Now there's no reason to do it except
23:32
Speaker 2: that that's what we do. And, you know, you're 100% right.
23:36
Speaker 2: When you're thinking about how the cosmetics of the sport shifted.
23:43
Speaker 2: I mean, 9-11 is 100% the epicenter of all of this.
23:48
Speaker 2: And what I found fascinating about it, you know, when
23:51
Speaker 2: you're starting to look at this perfect storm, is that
23:53
Speaker 2: you did have a perfect storm, literally a perfect storm.
23:56
Speaker 2: You had, you know, you had a terrorist attack, which
24:00
Speaker 2: created and aroused the nationalism of Americans. While at the
24:05
Speaker 2: same time, you were... you know, getting more and more
24:10
Speaker 2: and more of a, you had a new generation of
24:12
Speaker 2: athletes who was paying attention and a new generation of
24:15
Speaker 2: citizen who was paying attention because of the virality of
24:18
Speaker 2: social media. So now people are seeing things all, and
24:23
Speaker 2: it's all happening at the same time. And now the,
24:28
Speaker 2: the moment you've got the flags and the flyovers and
24:31
Speaker 2: the cops and the singing of the national anthem and the,
24:33
Speaker 2: you know, the, the surprise homecomings at halftime and the,
24:37
Speaker 2: The American flag, the size of the entire football field pregame,
24:42
Speaker 2: is happening at the exact same time that the athlete
24:46
Speaker 2: is becoming a little bit more politically aware. And all
24:51
Speaker 2: of this falls under the umbrella of 9-11. To answer
24:53
Speaker 2: your question, yes, the flag has always belonged to the military.
24:59
Speaker 2: And the NFL and the military have been essentially partners
25:02
Speaker 2: since the 1960s. But The way that they ramped this up,
25:09
Speaker 2: the way that they connected it, and normally you would
25:12
Speaker 2: get the Super Bowl, like you were talking about the
25:14
Speaker 2: bunting at the All-Star Game in the World Series in baseball. Well,
25:17
Speaker 2: you would get the remote shot of our naval stations
25:24
Speaker 2: or our military bases around the world. You'd only get
25:26
Speaker 2: that on the Super Bowl, just for the NFL to
25:29
Speaker 2: show the globalness of the sport, to say, see, everybody's
25:32
Speaker 2: watching this. Now it was weekly. every week there was
25:38
Speaker 2: some shot of a military base in Iraq or Afghanistan
25:43
Speaker 2: or somewhere. And so the embedding of this is happening
25:47
Speaker 2: at the exact same time you have fans saying, we
25:51
Speaker 2: don't want politics in our sports. And what they're really
25:53
Speaker 2: saying is we don't want black politics in our sports.
25:56
Speaker 2: We don't want... So at the exact same time that
26:01
Speaker 2: you're ramping up the politics as a sign of patriotism,
26:04
Speaker 2: you're also tamping down the voice of the guys who
26:09
Speaker 2: were playing these games. And these two things obviously blew
26:13
Speaker 2: up in the teens with obviously Trayvon Martin and Ferguson
26:18
Speaker 2: and then later Kaepernick.
26:19
Speaker 1: I was thinking about the fact that God Bless America
26:21
Speaker 1: stuck around because I was thinking about post 2020. Yeah,
26:27
Speaker 1: I guess it's around there. Remember when them boys had
26:30
Speaker 1: Roger Goodell Hill hostage in his own basement? Remember that?
26:33
Speaker 1: He sat down, he made that video, he talked about
26:35
Speaker 1: systemic racism and everything else, looking like he ain't slept
26:38
Speaker 1: in three days. But what they did after that was
26:42
Speaker 1: they put a lot of stuff on the field. It
26:45
Speaker 1: takes all of us, the end racism, you know, all
26:47
Speaker 1: those symbols on the field. And then I think it
26:49
Speaker 1: was last season was the first one where they decided
26:52
Speaker 1: to take end racism off of the field. And of
26:55
Speaker 1: course that raised a bit of a social media stink,
26:58
Speaker 1: but as I've been thought about it, it was like, nah, A,
27:01
Speaker 1: I'm surprised they kept it out there as long as
27:03
Speaker 1: they did.
27:03
Speaker 2: I think it.
27:04
Speaker 1: Probably served the purpose for a period of time. But
27:07
Speaker 1: then I said to myself, I don't think anybody even
27:10
Speaker 1: sees it anymore, right? Like after a while, it just
27:13
Speaker 1: kind of blends into the background. Like I noticed that
27:15
Speaker 1: when they had all the symbols during the bubble in
27:18
Speaker 1: the NBA in 2020, and they had Black Lives Matter
27:21
Speaker 1: on the floor and all of that. And then after
27:23
Speaker 1: a while, it was like, oh, this is a decision
27:25
Speaker 1: that was made to get through this week. But like,
27:27
Speaker 1: that's gone now. Like I get it, right? Obviously, we
27:32
Speaker 1: have gotten the point about God bless America and all
27:34
Speaker 1: of those things. They never stopped. But I wonder, like
27:39
Speaker 1: when you're at a stadium and they play God Bless
27:41
Speaker 1: America or even the National Anthem, it's not like it
27:44
Speaker 1: swells up the whole stadium and everybody's like, hell yeah, America.
27:49
Speaker 2: Well, people are numb to it now. It's just something
27:50
Speaker 2: we do. Yeah, I mean, it's, everyone's numb to it. Well,
27:56
Speaker 2: and I think that's sort of the interesting part of
27:57
Speaker 2: this conversation is that by the time you get to
28:01
Speaker 2: 25 years, it's a generational thing now. No one knows
28:05
Speaker 2: any different. If you're the core demographic of who the
28:09
Speaker 2: NFL is trying to sell this sport to, they don't
28:11
Speaker 2: know any different. They probably don't even know why they're
28:15
Speaker 2: singing it. They don't know why it's there because there's
28:20
Speaker 2: no before to the before and after where there is
28:22
Speaker 2: for us. We remember it not being there. So it
28:25
Speaker 2: is jarring to us and normal for them. And I
28:30
Speaker 2: think that when you look at it from the standpoint
28:34
Speaker 2: of the messaging, sooner or later, the messaging doesn't even
28:40
Speaker 2: need a message. It's just there. I mean, like, for example,
28:44
Speaker 2: one thing that we were talking about, we were talking
28:45
Speaker 2: about the American flag. 9-11 was also the beginning of
28:52
Speaker 2: the flag lapel, the little mini lapel, you know, the
28:57
Speaker 2: lapel flag. And if you notice, there's not a politician
28:59
Speaker 2: that walks around without one of those now. It just
29:02
Speaker 2: becomes embedded. These are the things that are part of
29:06
Speaker 2: the selling of a politician. And if you don't have
29:09
Speaker 2: one of them on, it's a news cycle. You're un-American.
29:14
Speaker 2: You're not patriotic. I mean, it's become part of the uniform.
29:19
Speaker 2: And you're right. I mean, the speed of all of this,
29:22
Speaker 2: and it'll be very, very interesting to see how history
29:25
Speaker 2: treats these things. Because, yes, 9-11 is the, it's the
29:31
Speaker 2: watershed event. But, 2020 is not just pandemic, but it's
29:37
Speaker 2: also George Floyd. It's all of these things happening all
29:39
Speaker 2: at the same time. time. And now you are looking
29:42
Speaker 2: at how are we selling the sport? Roger Goodell is
29:46
Speaker 2: scrambling in 2020, running for his life in 2020. And
29:51
Speaker 2: it wasn't because, oh, well, people are just desensitized to 9-11.
29:55
Speaker 2: It was because of the George Floyd stuff and because
29:57
Speaker 2: of all this stuff. that had been percolating at the
30:00
Speaker 2: exact same time. So now what you've got in terms
30:05
Speaker 2: of your signaling and your messaging, I used to laugh
30:07
Speaker 2: at it. You and I used to talk about this, right?
30:09
Speaker 2: I mean, it takes all of us in the end
30:11
Speaker 2: zone to do what? I mean, so everyone is sort
30:16
Speaker 2: of tiptoeing around all of this symbolizing. And I think
30:20
Speaker 2: what makes it really interesting as a conversation is that
30:24
Speaker 2: if you were born In 2004, you're 22, 23 years old, right? 2000, whatever,
30:31
Speaker 2: how old you are. You're 2002, a year after 9-11.
30:34
Speaker 2: You're 24 now. It doesn't have the same punch. It
30:37
Speaker 2: doesn't have the same value. It doesn't mean the same
30:39
Speaker 2: thing in terms of symbolizing because the symbol doesn't need
30:45
Speaker 2: any value anymore because it's all you know.
30:48
Speaker 1: Yeah. Imagine trying to explain Freedom Fries to those people. Right.
30:54
Speaker 1: Like I was actually thinking about this when not too
30:58
Speaker 1: long ago, the whole woke one thing was going around.
31:01
Speaker 1: AOC saying that woke one was crazy. And, you know,
31:06
Speaker 1: sometimes it was, but they were crazy.
31:07
Speaker 2: Sometimes it was.
31:09
Speaker 1: But if you thought woke one was crazy, baby, if
31:12
Speaker 1: you had been here in 2001. Well, and once again,
31:16
Speaker 1: 11 response. And for those of you who might be
31:20
Speaker 1: too young to know Freedom Fries, we got mad at France.
31:23
Speaker 1: I forget what France did that made people mad. And
31:25
Speaker 1: in the cafeteria at Congress, they stopped calling them French
31:28
Speaker 1: fries and started calling them Freedom Fries.
31:31
Speaker 2: Freedom Fries.
31:32
Speaker 1: That really happened.
31:33
Speaker 2: That really happened. And while you're at it, just go
31:36
Speaker 2: Google the Dixie Chicks and Phil Donahue and Ashley Banfield
31:40
Speaker 2: and anybody who questioned anything that went against whatever the
31:47
Speaker 2: United States government company line was at the time. I mean,
31:50
Speaker 2: I was having this conversation with a friend of mine,
31:52
Speaker 2: not to get too far off topic, the other day about,
31:55
Speaker 2: you know, the great Colin Powell and where this was
31:58
Speaker 2: going in terms of foreign policy and how this man
32:01
Speaker 2: disgraced himself. He's a hero, he's a legend. And that
32:04
Speaker 2: time period changed how we view everything. And the things
32:11
Speaker 2: that just became embedded, that have never gone away. That's
32:14
Speaker 2: the piece of this that I find most interesting, is
32:17
Speaker 2: that the pressure that was placed on anybody who said,
32:23
Speaker 2: wait a minute, this doesn't seem right. Or maybe it's
32:27
Speaker 2: all gone a little too far. Maybe we can pull
32:29
Speaker 2: this back. I remember listening to people in baseball, and
32:32
Speaker 2: they were saying the same thing you were saying. Why
32:34
Speaker 2: do we still play God Bless America?
32:36
Speaker 1: Why?
32:36
Speaker 2: It's been 15 years, right? It's been a while. And
32:39
Speaker 2: the reason is because nobody wanted to be the one
32:42
Speaker 2: to stop doing it.
32:43
Speaker 1: No, ain't nobody going to be the person to get
32:45
Speaker 1: in there and make the suggestion.
32:47
Speaker 2: I ain't going to be no news cycle. They didn't want,
32:50
Speaker 2: they didn't need that, right? And so what you're really
32:53
Speaker 2: talking about, you're not talking about patriotism, you're talking about fear.
32:58
Speaker 2: You know, like really, let's start, instead of giving it
33:01
Speaker 2: these labels, let's actually parse what we're really talking about.
33:03
Speaker 2: Are we talking about patriotism? No, we're talking about conformity.
33:07
Speaker 2: We're talking about fear. We're talking about stepping out of line.
33:10
Speaker 2: We're talking about the price of stepping out of line.
33:13
Speaker 2: None of this has anything to do with patriotism. In fact,
33:15
Speaker 2: it's the antithesis of patriotism. Yeah.
33:18
Speaker 1: Like imagine being the person in the meeting where they're like,
33:20
Speaker 1: hey man, so we need to do something to like
33:23
Speaker 1: shorten up the time of the games. What do you
33:25
Speaker 1: think we should do? And somebody raised their hand. I
33:28
Speaker 1: think we should stop singing God Bless America.
33:30
Speaker 2: All right, cool.
33:31
Speaker 1: So what do you think we should do? You're immediately
33:35
Speaker 1: moving off that idea.
33:35
Speaker 2: And they looked at that dude and they said... Pack
33:38
Speaker 2: your shit. Yeah. Yeah. Like, huh?
33:41
Speaker 1: Huh? Huh?
33:44
Speaker 2: Oh, so now we know who you are. Yeah. Yep.
33:47
Speaker 2: That's all it is. Enemy camp stuff. I mean, and, and,
33:50
Speaker 2: and it's true. All of those things, when you think
33:54
Speaker 2: about where the culture went and what became standard, it
34:00
Speaker 2: wasn't just the sipping of the water going in through
34:03
Speaker 2: security and or the fact that active military can go,
34:06
Speaker 2: you know, go cut the line first. And all of
34:09
Speaker 2: these things sort of shifted our viewpoint to the point
34:17
Speaker 2: now where when you think about what sports looks like,
34:22
Speaker 2: it broke down so quickly across, you know, the racial
34:26
Speaker 2: lines because you had the labor protesting and And you
34:32
Speaker 2: had management trying to profit, but you also had business
34:37
Speaker 2: underneath it, which was the fans were being manipulated by
34:42
Speaker 2: all of these symbols because the military was charging the
34:47
Speaker 2: sports teams. And it wasn't even partisan. It was two Republicans,
34:52
Speaker 2: the late John McCain and Jeff Flake, who were like,
34:55
Speaker 2: wait a minute. You guys are making money off of this?
34:59
Speaker 2: The Milwaukee Brewers, you guys are charging? The National Guard,
35:04
Speaker 2: $ 80, 000 to sing the national anthem at a Brewers game?
35:09
Speaker 2: And yet, the power of those symbols was so great
35:14
Speaker 2: that even when it had been exposed as a fraud,
35:18
Speaker 2: that all this flag, flyover, patriotism, go USA stuff was
35:23
Speaker 2: a fraud, even then the public didn't care. Because to
35:27
Speaker 2: your point, it was comforting. And that the symbol mattered
35:31
Speaker 2: more than the meeting behind the symbol. Symbol didn't have
35:34
Speaker 2: to have any meaning anymore.
35:36
Speaker 1: And the government barely thinks it's a fraud because they
35:38
Speaker 1: firmly believe that the next great American warrior is watching
35:43
Speaker 1: these games and watching these symbols and will then sign up.
35:49
Speaker 1: That's why you get all this advertisement for enlisting in
35:52
Speaker 1: the military during these games. Now, I have to be
35:55
Speaker 1: honest with you. It ain't been very many times in
35:58
Speaker 1: my life that I've been watching football with somebody and
36:00
Speaker 1: thought to myself, yo, man, this motherfucker might be Rambo.
36:04
Speaker 1: It's not, you know, like, that's just not.
36:06
Speaker 2: I don't... Don't forget Pat Tillman, right?
36:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, and see, Tillman to me is a fascinating case
36:12
Speaker 1: because while I may disagree with where Tillman was coming from,
36:20
Speaker 1: it's hard not to respect it, right? Fine, then I'll
36:24
Speaker 1: just go over there myself. How about that? Dies. We
36:29
Speaker 1: find out that he was killed by friendly fire. His
36:33
Speaker 1: family and everybody else was lied to about this. And
36:36
Speaker 1: they stand anywhere they can to get somebody to hear
36:39
Speaker 1: how things didn't go like it was presented to the
36:43
Speaker 1: world that they went. And we still don't care.
36:46
Speaker 2: And still don't care.
36:47
Speaker 1: And he is, look, they retired his number in Arizona.
36:49
Speaker 1: I went to the Hoover Dam. My last trip in Vegas.
36:52
Speaker 1: And I think it's the Pat Tillman Bridge, right? Like
36:55
Speaker 1: he's the one guy. There's a statue out there.
36:57
Speaker 2: Right. He's got a statue.
36:59
Speaker 1: It's really hard to say anything bad about him because
37:02
Speaker 1: strictly on principle and the willingness to lay it out there,
37:05
Speaker 1: you can make no argument against it. And he was
37:08
Speaker 1: used and he was manipulated. And that still didn't make
37:12
Speaker 1: people mad. No. 100%.
37:15
Speaker 2: And that's why when you go back and look at
37:18
Speaker 2: that time period, and it's going to be very interesting
37:20
Speaker 2: to see how it survives, how it gets, you know,
37:25
Speaker 2: the further away you get from history, the less accurate
37:27
Speaker 2: it gets, right? So it will be very interesting to
37:32
Speaker 2: see how that time period is reflected upon and how
37:38
Speaker 2: it's interpreted and reinterpreted and reinterpreted again for future generations.
37:43
Speaker 2: But if you were there, If you were there, as
37:47
Speaker 2: I was absolutely there, as a professional, as a grown-up,
37:53
Speaker 2: you felt the sea change. A lot of the stuff
37:55
Speaker 2: that we're talking about now was foundational then. And the
38:03
Speaker 2: speed in which you could see how quickly people would
38:06
Speaker 2: get in line. I mean, the fact that Pat Tillman
38:11
Speaker 2: went from American hero to American hero but this time
38:19
Speaker 2: American hero because he was a dissident because his family
38:22
Speaker 2: were dissidents and he was the dissident going things over
38:26
Speaker 2: here are messed up like the stuff that he was
38:29
Speaker 2: saying about what was happening over there I mean that
38:31
Speaker 2: is that is its own story and and I just
38:35
Speaker 2: like I said I remember anybody who spoke up I
38:39
Speaker 2: mean you were in major trouble if you spoke your
38:43
Speaker 2: mind in this country during that time period. And let's
38:47
Speaker 2: not forget, I was going to say, and let's not forget,
38:49
Speaker 2: that didn't go away because then you had other things happen.
38:54
Speaker 2: In 2013, you had the Boston Marathon bombing and everyone
38:56
Speaker 2: just doubled back down on it. It was like, back,
38:58
Speaker 2: here we go again. And all of these things are
39:04
Speaker 2: very much significant and contributors to where we are now.
39:10
Speaker 2: I think 9-11 once again, and you brought up that
39:13
Speaker 2: next moment. I've always felt that COVID is probably that
39:17
Speaker 2: next moment for that next generation of their defining moment.
39:21
Speaker 2: But I'm still, when I think about it, I'm not
39:25
Speaker 2: even sure if COVID measures to what 9-11 was, but
39:31
Speaker 2: it probably does in terms of that seismic. What was
39:35
Speaker 2: the next seismic thing that changed the way your entire
39:39
Speaker 2: world operated? COVID is absolutely sort of right after 9-11.
39:44
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think the million people dying.
39:46
Speaker 2: Right? And the denial of the science and the politicizing,
39:52
Speaker 2: it just continued to spiral. And 9-11 had a lot
39:57
Speaker 2: to do with that because of the inability for anyone
40:02
Speaker 2: to question it. Right.
40:05
Speaker 1: And the fact that 9-11 was immediately spun into the
40:09
Speaker 1: Iraq justification.
40:10
Speaker 2: Well, that's 100% right.
40:12
Speaker 1: As soon as this happened, people were like, hey! So
40:15
Speaker 1: you think we can go to Iraq now?
40:18
Speaker 2: What? Now we can go to war. And I think
40:20
Speaker 2: the other piece of it to be on topic with
40:22
Speaker 2: sports is the real shift here is the industry of
40:29
Speaker 2: sports recognizing and the people who are watching the industry
40:34
Speaker 2: of sports recognizing the power of it. It's like there
40:38
Speaker 2: are raw numbers here that we can exploit. I mean,
40:42
Speaker 2: I remember talking to the great three-star general, Russell Honore,
40:44
Speaker 2: who was legend in, you know, during the Katrina disaster,
40:50
Speaker 2: you know, when he was like, look, we have recruitment problems.
40:55
Speaker 2: We can't get this type of audience in any other advertising.
41:00
Speaker 2: You know, I remember when we were kids, oh, the U.S. Army,
41:02
Speaker 2: it does more before 9 a.m. than most people do
41:05
Speaker 2: all day. That was a hundred times, hundredfold in the
41:09
Speaker 2: 9-11 years because People weren't signing up. So you needed
41:14
Speaker 2: sports to be political. You needed sports to be a factor.
41:19
Speaker 2: You didn't have any soldiers.
41:20
Speaker 1: They weren't trying to be all they could be. Ain't
41:21
Speaker 1: nobody trying to be all you could be.
41:25
Speaker 2: You know, I mean, seriously. And they didn't hide that.
41:29
Speaker 2: This was a real major recruiting tool. And sports played
41:35
Speaker 2: into it. And I think it's instructive to recognize that
41:39
Speaker 2: sports is playing this role At the same time, sports
41:42
Speaker 2: people are like, we don't want politics in our sports. Yes,
41:45
Speaker 2: you do. Right.
41:46
Speaker 1: Well, it led to the question of what people define
41:50
Speaker 1: as being politics. Like somehow the symbolism is not seen
41:55
Speaker 1: as politics because based on the very political assertion that
42:00
Speaker 1: we all, this is at once, this is all ours, right?
42:04
Speaker 2: That's right.
42:05
Speaker 1: I would also, I think many people would also argue
42:07
Speaker 1: one of the things that happened as a result of
42:09
Speaker 1: 9-11 and exacerbation of something that was present, which is
42:12
Speaker 1: the idea that the American flag belongs to white people, right?
42:15
Speaker 2: That's right.
42:15
Speaker 1: People would wave the American flag while they said bigoted
42:20
Speaker 1: things the way people once waved the Confederate flag when
42:23
Speaker 1: they would say those things. The Confederate flag, we got that.
42:26
Speaker 2: That's all y'all, baby.
42:27
Speaker 1: Y'all can have that. You do that to the American flag,
42:30
Speaker 1: we over here are like, well, shit, what we got?
42:32
Speaker 2: Exactly. Where's our flag, right? I remember during those years,
42:36
Speaker 2: whenever I would go speak at universities, I'd talk to
42:38
Speaker 2: these kids and I'd be in these lecture halls, you know,
42:41
Speaker 2: 200 students and I would ask them, is the American
42:46
Speaker 2: flag a political symbol? How many of you believe that?
42:52
Speaker 2: Nobody's hand would go up. And I would say, well,
42:57
Speaker 2: what is it a symbol of? And then the hands
42:59
Speaker 2: would go up. Patriotism. And I'm like, what's the difference?
43:04
Speaker 2: What's the difference when you're at war? And you could
43:09
Speaker 2: see the gears kind of turning, but They didn't know
43:12
Speaker 2: where they were turning to. It was like, all right,
43:15
Speaker 2: this is interesting. And then you just shut it down.
43:18
Speaker 2: It's like, okay, I don't know if I want to
43:20
Speaker 2: think about this. Because to them, politics is Democrat-Republican. It's
43:23
Speaker 2: not foreign policy. It's very, very narrow. And just as
43:30
Speaker 2: protest is identified with something that is considered anti-American, Whereas
43:40
Speaker 2: we know that there have been plenty of protests coming
43:44
Speaker 2: from our government right now. They're protesting all the time.
43:48
Speaker 2: So what I found really interesting was 9-11 made people
43:55
Speaker 2: think about what all of this meant. And then they
44:00
Speaker 2: sort of concluded, I don't really want to think about
44:03
Speaker 2: this after all.
44:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, that is the one. When you get to it
44:06
Speaker 1: and you're like, ugh, how about we talk about something else?
44:08
Speaker 2: How about we talk about something else? And what's really,
44:13
Speaker 2: really key about all of that is that it's happening
44:18
Speaker 2: in sports where we're not supposed to be talking about
44:22
Speaker 2: any of it. And it's a reminder that the people
44:25
Speaker 2: who do understand this understand just how valuable this property
44:31
Speaker 2: is for non-sports subjects. Because once again, where can you
44:36
Speaker 2: get this type of audience, especially in a post-cable streaming
44:42
Speaker 2: world where nobody's watching the same thing anymore, except sports? Like,
44:48
Speaker 2: where are those big audiences? Where can we go? Everyone's
44:51
Speaker 2: not watching all in the family at the same time anymore.
44:55
Speaker 2: It's all sports when you want to try to get
44:57
Speaker 2: that critical mass audience.
44:59
Speaker 1: And that's the thing. Everybody's coming together for largely the
45:03
Speaker 1: same reason. Right? Like, it's a vibe. Like the idea,
45:08
Speaker 1: we're going to the game.
45:10
Speaker 2: That's right. And you can see it when something, you know,
45:13
Speaker 2: that's the power of sports. Suddenly, everybody's a Knicks fan
45:18
Speaker 2: because now it's hot. Like, it's the, you know, when
45:21
Speaker 2: it becomes the thing to do, that happens in sports
45:25
Speaker 2: faster than virtually anything else. You know, it becomes that
45:29
Speaker 2: vibe because it, you know, when there's success, it sort
45:32
Speaker 2: of sweeps up the momentum. And it's, entertaining and it's
45:37
Speaker 2: lucrative and there's an opportunity there and believe me um
45:42
Speaker 2: the conversations i had had with commissioners and executives and
45:45
Speaker 2: union members during these years they all knew they just
45:50
Speaker 2: couldn't buck the tide they were like look i don't
45:53
Speaker 2: really think it should be in here either but who's
45:56
Speaker 2: gonna be the one to say no who's gonna rip
45:58
Speaker 2: the band-aid off the band-aid still hasn't been ripped off.
46:01
Speaker 1: Last question i'll ask on this no matter your politics,
46:05
Speaker 1: your views on the world or anything else, it is
46:08
Speaker 1: kind of undeniable that when the sports did come back,
46:12
Speaker 1: there was a certain feeling of unity and a bit
46:15
Speaker 1: of a euphoria that you saw go over those crowds.
46:17
Speaker 1: Like when you see George Bush throw out that first pitch,
46:20
Speaker 1: I think it was at Shea Stadium. I was there. Yeah,
46:21
Speaker 1: it comes out and does it. It's a thing, right?
46:24
Speaker 1: Like it was a moment. It was a movie, as
46:26
Speaker 1: somebody would say.
46:27
Speaker 2: Well, I think it's important to remember, Bo, people were scared.
46:31
Speaker 2: Like they were scared. You know, Americans, you know, I've
46:36
Speaker 2: spent a lot of time watching a lot of the
46:40
Speaker 2: Italian new wave cinema. And one of the beauties of
46:43
Speaker 2: those films, whether it's Rossellini or Fellini or Visconti or
46:47
Speaker 2: any of those directors, they're actually filming in post-war Europe.
46:51
Speaker 2: That place is bombed to shit, right? I mean, those
46:54
Speaker 2: aren't movie sets, right? That's actually what it looked like.
46:59
Speaker 2: And when people go to Ground Zero, not anymore, but
47:02
Speaker 2: when they were going to Ground Zero, this is what
47:04
Speaker 2: it looked like. When you go look at the Capitol,
47:06
Speaker 2: this is what it looked like. Not the Capitol when
47:08
Speaker 2: you look at the Pentagon. It's what it looked like.
47:11
Speaker 2: And when we walked into Yankee Stadium, they told us
47:17
Speaker 2: that there were snipers on the roof, that there were
47:19
Speaker 2: snipers in the lights, there were snipers in the buildings
47:23
Speaker 2: across the street, and that George Bush was going to
47:27
Speaker 2: walk across there. you felt it because you were scared
47:33
Speaker 2: and you were rightfully scared because nobody knew what was
47:37
Speaker 2: going to happen next. I remember when we were walking into, um,
47:42
Speaker 2: into the bodega, the, you know, two hours after the
47:44
Speaker 2: towers collapsed, I was surrounded by a whole bunch of
47:46
Speaker 2: first responders all caked up and debris and everything. And
47:49
Speaker 2: they were all, you know, doing their shifts. And they
47:52
Speaker 2: were talking about how there was a, there was a
47:55
Speaker 2: fear that the gas mains were going to go up
47:57
Speaker 2: and that now is a, that the city was vulnerable
48:00
Speaker 2: enough right now that there could be secondary attacks. People
48:03
Speaker 2: didn't know. And you found out what mattered to you
48:08
Speaker 2: during that time. I was at all those games. And
48:12
Speaker 2: believe me, when Ronan Tynan came out and started singing
48:14
Speaker 2: the long version to God Bless America, absolutely you felt it.
48:20
Speaker 2: You discovered that this really mattered. Like that who you
48:25
Speaker 2: were actually mattered. And I don't think there are very
48:27
Speaker 2: many moments in anybody's life where you have to question
48:33
Speaker 2: who you are and what you stand for. And I
48:37
Speaker 2: remember we drove to Chicago for that first series. And
48:42
Speaker 2: I'm sitting there because nobody wanted to get on an airplane.
48:46
Speaker 2: And we're at a truck stop in Indiana. Going to
48:48
Speaker 2: use the bathroom, sitting there in the urinal. Dude, redneck
48:51
Speaker 2: dude is standing next to me. In Indiana. And he
48:56
Speaker 2: looks at me and he goes, you doing okay? That
49:00
Speaker 2: man would have never said a word to me. Today, before,
49:04
Speaker 2: there's one moment in the history of my life where
49:07
Speaker 2: that would have happened and he actually meant it. We're
49:11
Speaker 2: on the same side today. This was six days after
49:16
Speaker 2: the towers. You know?
49:20
Speaker 1: Now, do you think there's anything that could happen now
49:22
Speaker 1: that could do that again? Where we are so partitioned now,
49:25
Speaker 1: I think in large part as a result of the
49:27
Speaker 1: effect that all this internet has had on us. Could
49:30
Speaker 1: it happen again?
49:31
Speaker 2: I don't know.
49:33
Speaker 1: Like, could sports be even viewed as that unifying force again?
49:37
Speaker 1: Is it possible?
49:38
Speaker 2: Well, it's possible. because we don't know what's coming. I mean,
49:43
Speaker 2: if somebody blows up the White House tomorrow from some
49:49
Speaker 2: missile site in Europe or the Middle East or wherever, yeah,
49:54
Speaker 2: we'll see how people respond. But the discourse, the way
49:59
Speaker 2: that we treat each other right now makes it very,
50:01
Speaker 2: very unlikely because of the exploitation of it. Not only
50:07
Speaker 2: it doesn't feel like there's commonality, it feels like It's
50:11
Speaker 2: just that everything that happened is another step in the manipulation.
50:15
Speaker 2: That's all. And the reason why I say that is
50:18
Speaker 2: because we had a global pandemic where people were dying daily.
50:21
Speaker 2: Everybody knows someone who died from COVID and still couldn't
50:24
Speaker 2: come together on that. Like where you knew people. I mean,
50:29
Speaker 2: I know a couple of people who died in the towers.
50:33
Speaker 2: Everybody knows somebody who died of COVID. You know, and
50:37
Speaker 2: that didn't bring people together. Sports didn't bring COVID together.
50:41
Speaker 2: You know, COVID didn't bring, you know, sports didn't bring
50:44
Speaker 2: people together during COVID.
50:46
Speaker 1: You know, and I've always wondered if there was a
50:48
Speaker 1: way when people came back or sports came back, but
50:53
Speaker 1: it was with no crowd, right? So there's no associated visual.
50:56
Speaker 1: There was nothing that allowed for like a sharing of energy, right?
50:59
Speaker 1: Or anything that like made.
51:01
Speaker 2: You mean empty stadiums with cardboard cutouts?
51:04
Speaker 1: Yeah.
51:04
Speaker 2: Oh, wow, man.
51:05
Speaker 1: I forgot about the cardboard cutouts. Or like in Japan-
51:09
Speaker 1: where they ordered all the sex dolls, or it was Korea,
51:11
Speaker 1: I can't remember which, but they ordered all the sex dolls,
51:14
Speaker 1: and I'm surprised there was any of those left. I
51:16
Speaker 1: thought them things would have been flew off the shelves.
51:18
Speaker 1: There's somebody mad than a motherfucker. You was wasting all
51:20
Speaker 1: that good freak on the goddamn stadium that ain't nobody in.
51:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I think it's also important to remember that
51:29
Speaker 2: there was a moment at Yankee Stadium when President Bush
51:33
Speaker 2: threw out that first pitch because people were scared. They
51:36
Speaker 2: were literally scared for their lives. Let's not forget that
51:40
Speaker 2: in addition to 9-11, in addition to 9-11, you had
51:46
Speaker 2: the anthrax scare where anthrax was going through the mail.
51:49
Speaker 2: People open up their mail, shaking their mail at arm's length.
51:53
Speaker 2: And then you had the DC sniper happening at the
51:55
Speaker 2: same time, randomly killing people. And no one knew if
51:59
Speaker 2: those things were connected or not. People were afraid to
52:04
Speaker 2: go get gas, thinking you're going to be randomly assassinated
52:10
Speaker 2: at the same time you saw the towers fall. America
52:12
Speaker 2: hadn't dealt with anything like that. This was a Pearl
52:19
Speaker 2: Harbor level event where for the first time, Americans were like,
52:25
Speaker 2: wait a minute, I'm in danger in my own home,
52:28
Speaker 2: in my own community? We never saw anything like that.
52:32
Speaker 1: Hey, man, DC's not the wildest shit in all time.
52:35
Speaker 1: Wildest thing that ever happened and biggest surprise of my lifetime, boy.
52:41
Speaker 1: I was like, hey, man, white folks can't blame this
52:45
Speaker 1: shit on us. They can't blame this on us. No, sir.
52:49
Speaker 1: No way.
52:50
Speaker 2: There was somebody with a military grade weapon shooting people
52:56
Speaker 2: out the trunk of his car.
52:58
Speaker 1: But we ain't even know it was the trunk of
52:59
Speaker 1: the car at the time.
53:00
Speaker 2: Didn't even, exactly, didn't even know how.
53:02
Speaker 1: They didn't know where it was coming from. This dude
53:04
Speaker 1: was just smoking people, pumping gas, and every day they
53:09
Speaker 1: sent that same black man out there, Moose, they sent
53:12
Speaker 1: Moose out there every day to tell us that he
53:14
Speaker 1: ain't know nothing that we didn't know. Every day. And
53:17
Speaker 1: he had to send him out there every day because
53:20
Speaker 1: people was shook, man.
53:22
Speaker 2: Shook. Yeah. Yeah. It was real. And the point is,
53:27
Speaker 2: is that nobody knew if this stuff was related or not.
53:31
Speaker 1: Right.
53:31
Speaker 2: So that's why you got, you know, so George Bush
53:34
Speaker 2: walking out there trying to do the presidential thing of saying,
53:38
Speaker 2: I'm not afraid. Of course, then he went and told
53:40
Speaker 2: everyone to go shopping. But at that moment, at that moment,
53:44
Speaker 2: everybody felt that because everyone needed. That's what leadership was
53:49
Speaker 2: all about. Everybody, even though it was completely symbolic or whatever.
53:52
Speaker 2: But at that moment, in that moment, it was like, OK.
53:56
Speaker 2: Could somebody tell us we're going to be all right?
53:59
Speaker 2: And sports did that.
54:00
Speaker 1: Howard Bryant, check him out. Check out Kings and Pawns,
54:03
Speaker 1: which does not exactly talk about these themes, but you
54:06
Speaker 1: can get Full Dissident, which I'm sure is available. We'll
54:09
Speaker 1: find books that sold that will talk about a lot
54:11
Speaker 1: of things that we have talked about here in this show.
54:13
Speaker 1: But Kings and Pawns is also a beast. But man,
54:15
Speaker 1: I appreciate you.
54:17
Speaker 2: No, thank you.
54:18
Speaker 1: All right, man. Ladies and gentlemen, thanks so much for
54:19
Speaker 1: joining us here on The Right Time.
54:21
Speaker 2: We do this four days a week.
54:23
Speaker 1: Brian Brumley handled things behind the scenes. Thank you, sir.
54:25
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54:37
Speaker 1: of days.
54:38
Speaker 2: Take it easy.