Now Let’s Get Down to a Real...

Now Let’s Get Down to a Real Bull Session

Ross Newhan’s recent column (Free Speech, or a Lot of ‘Bull’?, April 13), hit the nail on the head. Both Dale Petroskey of the Hall of Fame and Hootie Johnson of the Masters have managed to accomplish what Sen. Trent Lott couldn’t: that is, launch full-scale attacks on our basic right to dissent.

Who says sports isn’t political?

It is clear Dale Petroskey would rather send Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins back to the minors than let them attend the 15th anniversary screening of “Bull Durham” at baseball’s hallowed shrine.

But little attention has been paid to writer Roger Kahn’s reaction to events at Cooperstown. I don’t know Kahn, the author of the best-selling “Boys of Summer,” but I admire his guts. Kahn didn’t have to protest Petroskey’s treatment of Sarandon and Robbins by canceling his appearance at the Hall in August, but he has.

Hats off to Kahn and Newhan. They understand that dissent, even if it comes from Cooperstown, is worth fighting for.

Denny Freidenrich

Laguna Beach

I have enjoyed Ross Newhan’s articles about baseball over the years, but I think he is very confused about free speech rights in America.

Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins can give any opinion they want without fear of being thrown in jail and possibly tortured as in Saddam’s Iraq.

However, the public also has free speech rights that can be exercised by not putting down our money to watch their work.

Dale Petroskey of the Hall of Fame exercised his free speech rights by canceling the program. He did not have a constitutional obligation to provide the two actors with a public forum.

Gordon Christiansen

Hemet

Sorry, but Ross Newhan is the one who is full of a lot of it, if he thinks Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon were deprived of their First Amendment rights in the cancellation of the “Bull Durham” anniversary salute.

Did Dale Petroskey of the Hall of Fame make a mistake in not speaking with Robbins and Sarandon before canceling the salute? Yes, only in that he should have ascertained that they would not use the media attention for one of their antiwar tirades.

Sorry, Mr. Newhan, but in this case the baseball and movie-going public’s right not to be subjected to know-nothing egos was upheld, and doing without Roger Kahn’s pontificating is no loss either.

Julie Byers

Arcadia

Roger Kahn has every right to back out of his engagement to speak at the Baseball Hall of Fame because he was personally offended by the Hall’s canceling its celebration of “Bull Durham.”

But he should understand that the Hall had every right to cancel an event that would have served, in part, to honor Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins.

Somewhere along the way, people such as Mr. Kahn seem to have confused the right of every American to free speech with the right to have one’s opinions, no matter how stupid and offensive, respected by one and all.

The right to dissent is not limited only to New York sportswriters and members of SAG.

Burt Prelutsky

North Hills

Ross Newhan’s article criticizing the Hall of Fame’s decision to cancel its tribute to “Bull Durham” because of fears that its featured stars, Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon, would use the occasion to protest President Bush’s foreign policy, misses the obvious point: Why is the Hall of Fame paying attention to movies in the first place? This is Cooperstown, not Cannes.

David Macaray

Rowland Heights