Dave, for the last time, it's Amar'e Stoudemire -- not "Amare Stoudamire." They might look alike to you, but Amar'e is not Damon Stoudamire.

And since you have a cottage industry on this, remember: the President of Mexico is Felipe Calderon -- not "Ivan Calderon," the Puerto Rican outfielder.

It's apparently hard for Zirin to tell minorities apart.

Ivan,

You made your point in the previous column. Its clearly a mis-spelling on Dave's part. Yes it should be corrected if you are right, but no its not worth attempting to make him look bad.

You clearly have an agenda. Dave's is well known and documented, yours seems to be tearing people down that you dislike. Think about your actions.

John

While it would be nice to think that this might be the platform for the reintroduction of social activism into professional sports, I think we're a long ways from seeing players and definitely franchises from putting themselves out there.

Don't get me wrong, I'm glad the Suns did this and all but please note the wording of part of the press release that accompanied the announcement:

"The frustration with the federal government’s failure to deal with the issue of illegal immigration resulted in passage of a flawed state law."

In other words, we oppose the bill but we still want immigrants to get the hell out. OK, maybe that's overstating it, but at the very least, they're still trying not to ruffle those people who support discrimination against undocumented immigrants by claiming, "hey we still know that illegal immigrants are a problem" instead of taking a more principled stand and truly standing in solidarity with these people. And depsite all of the good will that they generate (which no doubt will help them with the latino market in arizona), this reduces what could have been a truly powerful statement into a PR stunt.

Hey Ivan the Terrible - Dave won't respond to your gibberish, nor should he, but your asinine attack is juvenile and the work of an obvious imbecile.

Nice try but your attempt at a gotcha is as deep as a baby pool - shallow.

Phil Jackson does the old "no politics" routine only after giving his populist stance. As if I needed any more reason to not like him. And keep treading on this, Phil, with your Latino fan base in LA.

Ivan, either you make a real point, or let it go. It's a typo (typographical error). The names are actually pronounced EXACTLY the same. Just stop.

Bob, if you're disapointed with the Suns gesture, get over it. My guess is you wanted something more like, "The Phoenix Suns, as an organization, call for the elimination of all borders." I would've loved that, but it's a friggin' NBA team. How about, "Nice gesture. I'd like to see more."

I don't expect the Suns to throw all resources towards the issue, but their statement decouples the law from the general issue of racist immigrant rhetoric to which it is inextricably entwined.

I'm not mad at them,and i'm very glad they did it. But if they're going to make a half-assed statement, I'm only going to half-assed applaud them for it.

Love the message they are trying to send, it's sad that my San Antonio Spurs have to come back and end the Sun's season.

Great piece...Now let's hope Bud Selig pulls the All-Star game out of Arizona.

Amar'e changed his name from Amare in fall of 2008. Apologies for not having this down correctly. The idea that this was done with racist intent is to put it mildly laughable.

Until reading this column, I had no idea Phil Jackson said anything so specific about Los Suns' stance, immigration, or what the American people supposedly want. As a lifetime Lakers fan, I find his comments disgusting considering the Latino fanbase the team has here in SoCal. With that kind of attitude, I don't care how many rings that guy has, he can take his bloated contract and walk next year.

When Phil Jackson was a second-stringer for the Knicks he was indeed very political. He was a staunch antiwar guy, tossed away his parent's establishment Christianity, and was clearly embracing the social revolution of the 60s.

As corroborated by a CBS News/60 Minutes article:

"By the time he got to the NBA in 1967, he had become a Buddhist. He was the NBA's resident flower child, a rebel who grew his hair long and protested the Vietnam war."

It's an old and tired story when athletes and their Neanderthal fans wet their pants about keeping sports and politics separate. It's absolute gibberish. As soon as they strike up the war-mongering Star Spangled Banner, and fly over their machines of death and destruction, and honor their fallen warriors (read: state sponsored terrorists), and finally sing "God Bless America," they have stamped their political ticket. They are part of the body politic.

In fact, most American sporting events are goddamn political rallies - propaganda with a side of beer and peanuts.

It's not the politics they challenge, it's the type of politics they don't like... it's the dissent of the establishment's status quo dogma.

As long as the political views "goose-step" with the corporate/Washington consensus, it's God Bless America.

Cue Kate Smith.

When Phil Jackson was a second-stringer for the Knicks he was indeed very political. He was a staunch antiwar guy, tossed away his parent's establishment Christianity, and was clearly embracing the social revolution of the 60s.

As corroborated by a CBS News/60 Minutes article:

"By the time he got to the NBA in 1967, he had become a Buddhist. He was the NBA's resident flower child, a rebel who grew his hair long and protested the Vietnam war."

It's an old and tired story when athletes and their Neanderthal fans wet their pants about keeping sports and politics separate. It's absolute gibberish. As soon as they strike up the war-mongering Star Spangled Banner, and fly over their machines of death and destruction, and honor their fallen warriors (read: state sponsored terrorists), and finally sing "God Bless America," they have stamped their political ticket. They are part of the body politic.

In fact, most American sporting events are goddamn political rallies - propaganda with a side of beer and peanuts.

It's not the politics they challenge, it's the type of politics they don't like... it's the dissent of the establishment's status quo dogma.

As long as the political views "goose-step" with the corporate/Washington consensus, it's God Bless America.

Cue Kate Smith.

When the so-called minority speak up, we tend to find that they really weren't the minority. I am Canadian and we are all proud of Steve Nash up in the Great White North. But, when we see positions of integrity taken by inclusive Americans, we are also a little more proud to be part of the North American community

Dave,

You fixed the Amar'e part, but not the Stoudamire part. Ivan was pretty clear, it's Stoudemire, not Stoudamire (as in Damon).

Unlike Ivan though I don't think you're racist.