Let’s begin today with a story that features two of America’s longstanding pastimes: baseball and racism. And since the latter of those seems to be, once again, at the forefront of an American election, we’ll set our story in a place that embodies the demagoguery that often divides us: Florida. “Xavier Medina, an assistant coach for Estero, watched from across the diamond. In all his years coaching youth sports, he had never seen a team abandon its own players. As the bizarre scene unfolded, he was witnessing the antithesis of what sports were supposed to be about. The cliches of teamwork and togetherness were collapsing in real time. Players wearing the same uniform were not united against Estero. They were divided against themselves. His second conclusion was even worse: The walkout did not appear to be a reckless act concocted by teenagers, but rather orchestrated and blessed by coaches and parents. The kids were taking the lead from the grown-ups.” Howard Bryant in ESPN: A racial slur and a Fort Myers High baseball team torn apart. “While many team issues fell under the common soap opera of high school sports — a nationwide epidemic of meddling parents and overbearing coaches, the unending battle between fair participation and winning at all costs — virtually the entirety of the grievances that destroyed the 2023 baseball team can be traced to two specific areas: the internecine racial history of Fort Myers, and, more urgently, the enforcement of conservative mandates playing out in education in Florida and around the nation.”