Baseball was among the most prominent American institutions to respond to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Tributes at ballparks across the country promised comfort to millions in shock but soon developed into rituals of victimization that affirmed the Bush administration's politics of war, discouraged the expression of dissenting opinions, and burdened the nation with yet another disincentive to reflect constructively on its response to terrorism. This essay views the aftermath of 9/11 as a quasi-religious social drama in which ballpark tributes became a ritualized vehicle for a belligerent patriotism that sought unity at the expense of democratic discourse.
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Michael L. Butterworth (2005) studied this question.