It takes a true leader to recognize when other members of his struggling ballclub (ie. Mike Pelfrey) desperately need to escape the scrutiny of the traditional media and bloggers alike. And with that, I pay tribute to newly returned Mets CF Carlos Beltran, who unselfishly gives us something to ponder this morning besides the Amazins’ 13-2 capitulation to the Arizona Diamondbacks last night. Showing himself to be a person of conscience, thoroughly unafraid of what CSTB’s new breed of sickening comment trolls might say, Beltran tells the New York Daily News’ Andy Martino that if selected to play in the 2011 MLB All-Star Game in Phoenix, he might skip the event in protest over Arizona’s SB1070.
“I’m against this law,” Beltran told the Daily News. “There are a lot of Latinos who come here and try to have a better future. It’s hard for the people who come here from Mexico to this country.”
The five-time All-Star said that he feared harassment while in Arizona. “I’m from Puerto Rico, so I don’t have that issue,” he said. “But still, who knows ” if I’m walking around here, and they see me speaking Spanish, who knows what might happen? I don’t know where that’s going to end up, but I don’t agree with it.”
He predicted that the state would suffer economically because of what he considered an ill-advised law.
“What’s going to happen is, all these Latinos that come to work hard, and they do work that not a lot of people want to do, the hard work ” that’s going to be affected,” Beltran said. “In the end, Arizona will notice that the law they implemented … in their heads they think it’s the right law, but I don’t think it’s the right law.”
Beltran is 100% correct about the difficulty in filling certain positions ; regardless of nationality, who’d want to relieve after Mike Pelfrey’s already blown the game?