Baseball Rebels: Athletes Who Refused to Shut Up

Sports and the sports industry are significant players in American society, influencing and helping to shape individuals as players and fans, and playing prominent roles in America's economy and politics.

Yet athletes are told to remain apolitical and to keep out of politics. In basketball, LeBron James was told to "just shut up and dribble." In football, Colin Kaepernick was condemned for taking a knee to protest police brutality and to support Black Lives Matter.

But sports are inherently political. It's just a matter of whose politics are going to have an influence or even be allowed. Sports owners and employers repeatedly use their resources and platform to influence laws, politics, candidates, elections, and public policies. Major League Baseball, for example, spends millions of dollars each year lobbying Congress and state legislatures. Yet nobody tells the owners to shut up.

Baseball players have been told to shut up on political and social issues, and almost all of them have. But there's a hidden history, for more than a century, of ballplayers and others connected to the sport who have refused. Elias's books Major League Rebels and Baseball Rebels tell their stories.

Join us as Professor Elias breaks down the political power of athletes.

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About Robert Elias:

Rob Elias is a Professor of Politics and Legal Studies at the University of San Francisco, where he teaches a course on Law, Politics and Baseball. He's the author of 10 books, including the baseball books, Baseball and the American Dream, The Deadly Tools of Ignorance, The Empire Strikes Out (on baseball and U.S. imperialism), and the just-published Major League Rebels and Baseball Rebels, both coauthored with Peter Dreier.

He has taught in USF’s politics department since 1989. Hailing from a Czech and Irish-Catholic working class family in New York City, Professor Elias created the USF Legal Studies, Criminal Justice Studies, and Peace & Justice Studies programs. He’s taught in USF's Honors Humanities and in the BA/MA in International Studies programs.

Elias has taught previously at McGill University (Montreal), Tufts University (Boston and France), the UC Berkeley, Penn State University, and the University of Maryland (College Park and Europe). He's been a researcher at the International Institute of Human Rights (Strasbourg), the Graduate Institute of International Studies (Geneva), Oxfam America (Boston), the Institute for Defense & Disarmament Studies (Cambridge), and the Vera Institute of Justice (New York). He’s the editor of Peace Review, and associate editor of New Political Science, Temida, the Encyclopedia of Peace, Violence & Conflict, and the International Review of Victimology.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Manny's, 3092 16th Street, San Francisco, United States