He would consider that rude

Sycophant, n. One who approaches Greatness on his belly so that he may not be commanded to turn and be kicked. - Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary

One of the longstanding comforts in this country for almost my entire life has been the separation between sports and state. Now, this was never anything official, and, sure, the occasional useless congressional hearing on steroids would pop up. But for the most part my federal government limited sticking its nose into the arena to the benign pushing the military on the audience, having a president throw out an occasional first pitch (which, for one who was supposedly so good at baseball, it is odd he hasn’t done so as president), or having a tendies party with a variety of dipping sauces for the strong handsome football boys in the White House.

We live in a braying new world, though, and sports is enough of a universal conversation piece that the President of the TV feels comfortable enough injecting himself into one uninvited at any given time, even about sports issues nobody was chatting about. Take the recent declaration of a planned pardon of the late Pete Rose, who was convicted of tax evasion in 1990 and for which he spent five months in prison. To someone like POTVS, this is hardly a crime at all if the perp is wealthy and/or famous (and he is currently working to ensure far fewer of that ilk ever face the increasingly subjective arm of the law). But on this alone, like, whatever. Rose is dead and not exactly remembered most for being a tax cheat, and his pardon would be merely a whim of a guy who believes the world exists perpetually between 1985-1993.

Nothing POTVS says anymore exists in a Hoover Tempo, though. Just a day after those half paying attention responded quizzically “Okay?” to the social media post righting a great injustice against a dude who also refused to deny allegations that he had sex with a minor, MLB commish Rob Manfred was reportedly weighing a lift on Rose’s ban from baseball. Rose’s family met with Manfred in December and filed an official appeal for Charlie Hustle’s reinstatement in January. Yet it was while the funk of the bathroom where the social media post was dropped still lingered that there was news of the head of America’s pastime putting in motion something he had shut down in 2015.

Part of the senility-soaked demand from POTVS reads “Baseball, which is dying all over the place, should get off its fat, lazy ass, and elect Pete Rose, even though far too late, into the Baseball Hall of Fame!” While not one of his more overt threats, and certainly one of his more hypocritical, it is an aggressive memo to baseball’s brass with an overtone of increasing wrath should his demands not be met. 

In his first term he had infamously gone to war through the media with Colin Kaepernick during the latter’s silent protests before football games, but the NFL did not rush to appease the old man who was angry that another wealthy person was questioning the broader systems in which their wealth existed. And that is what makes the weird obsession with the fictional Hannibal Lecter clearer–despite he himself being a gauche, ketchup-on-steak boor who was always sore about never being fully accepted in the posh Old Money circles–he like Lecter have a personal code of what is and is not "rude" that they impose on others despite themselves living lives that do not meet accepted decorum (though ironically Clarice Starling notes that an escaped Lecter won't come after her--"He would consider that rude"--unlike the targeted attacks we see from his biggest fan).

In his ridiculous meeting with Vladimir Zelenskyy last week, he scolded the Ukrainian president for not being more thankful. Peaceful protests like Kaepernick’s were “a lack of appreciation for our country and it’s a very sad thing.”

The President of the United States has never been the President of Baseball or of Football or of Ultimate Frisbee. But as CEOs and college presidents across the country have sought to obey in advance or adverse a loyalty oath signed with their dignities, now it appears that is what sports will become, too, an extension of the wills of a would-be mad king. The NFL already kowtowed by changing the tiny messages in the end zones in advance of the Super Bowl being graced with the honor of the POTVS’ presence. Now it looks as if baseball is following in prostration. Because in the time of the President of the TV 2.0, a sword of Damocles hangs over the heads of any suit who dare not fall in line with whatever toilet tweet gets fired off at random.

So that longstanding comfort for most of my life is eroding, quickly at that, because so many people who hold positions of power are scared of a guy who gets easily exposed when actually stood up to. And while sports will always intersect with wealth and race and gender and myriad other sociopolitical umbrellas, they were always at least free of the Commander in Chief’s spur of the moment axes to grind.

But now we don’t even get that anymore.