Protestors Take Their Message To The Baseball Field
by Cesar Lia Undun for Another Voice
July 23, 1928
CITY CENTER, TINY SEA, HARMONY — Baseball’s best players met in City Center on Saturday to exhibit their talents for a crowd of over 25,000 at the Inaugural UA All Star Game. The game of baseball has captured the nation’s attention this summer, as the Uplantic Association’s inaugural season has played out to the delight of sports enthusiasts at stadiums, gathered around their radios, or taking in game highlights at picture houses. One moment in Saturday’s festivities wasn’t readily relayed to outside audiences, however, when a group protesting the league’s ties to harmful and corrupt Harmonyc Brotherhood power structures interrupted the game.
The All Stars played their game in the shadow of the Lilywhite Monument, just down the street from the Harmonyc Brotherhood’s Central Hall and the Harmony State Capitol. The ballpark portion of City Center was completed last year for the Salvation Brothers team to compete in the UA. It is part of the larger complex of City Center square, which contains Heroes Monument Park, a glorification of the HB’s most egregious acts of war throughout history. While the Brothers home field and even their team name and crest clearly revere the HB as an institution, the team is technically independently owned and supposedly outside of religious influence.
George Hader owns the Brothers team. For decades, he has used his inherited wealth to fund programs of HB indoctrination all over the continent. The Brothers and the HB market the team as a sort of secular goodwill outreach, portraying the new Uplantic nation as ushering in an era of “live and let live” prosperity. They aim to be perceived as equals participating in the secular world, but they continue to take action to indoctrinate and control the free people of the USU. They continue to use wealth and power amassed from centuries of colonization to exact their self-serving policies of hatred.
The Brothers and their participation in the UA league are part of a campaign to normalize the crimes of the HB, to smooth over their glaring atrocities and push them into the background of everyday life in Uplantica. HB wealth controls most of the newspapers and nearly all radio outlets in Uplantica. It is no coincidence that most citizens are unaware of any opposing voices while HB leadership takes credit for the precarious national unity and diversity Uplantica has achieved, which they have fought against every step of the way.
In the 2nd inning of the game, with Jon Robertson of the Brothers pitching to Pedro Kopano of the Rivals, a group of dissidents took action to correct this by unfurling a huge banner from City Center’s centerfield mezzanine. The banner read “THE HB KILLS” and measured around 50 by 30 feet. It could clearly be seen from around the stadium. At the exact same time, protestors positioned around the stadium dropped thousands of pamphlets detailing the HB’s ongoing laundry list of crimes against humanity. The pamphlets caught the stadium’s lights like snow flurries and drifted into the stands and onto the field of play.
Only the initial sounds of the surprised crowd could be heard as the banner was unveiled before the radio broadcast’s live feed cut away. The network studio presenter took over and said there had been “some sort of interruption at the stadium” and cited technical difficulties before rehashing news from the week’s baseball games. After about seven minutes, the broadcast returned and the game went on with no mention of the protest. Their message may not have reached audiences outside the stadium as protestors hoped, but they almost certainly opened some eyes on the ground to the possibility of more complex truths in our society.
City Center Police said in a prepared statement that the protestors were removed from the stadium and detained for a short time before being released. There is no word yet on whether formal charges will be brought against them. Time will tell if the equity promised by the Uplantic justice system extends to those who would seek to improve it despite those who profit from its current imbalances.
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