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Jeff Suppan pitches against stem-cell research.
Cardinals' Suppan Pitching and Politicking
By JOE LAPOINTE
Published: October 25, 2006
ST. LOUIS, Oct. 25 — Jeff Suppan is scheduled to pitch for the St. Louis Cardinals in Game 4 of the World Series tonight at Busch Stadium. But his time on the mound will not be his only appearance on the telecast.
Mr. Suppan is one of several athletes who taped a 60-second political campaign commercial, to be broadcast on the Fox network’s national telecast of the game, urging Missouri voters to oppose stem-cell research and vote against Amendment 2 to the state constitution, on the ballot in the Nov. 7 election.
In a video copy of the ad, distributed by an anti-amendment group called Missourians Against Human Cloning and posted on the Internet, Mr. Suppan’s face appears in the first 10 seconds. He is not wearing a baseball cap in the ad.
“Amendment 2 claims it bans human cloning, but in the 2,000 words you don’t read, it makes cloning a constitutional right,” Mr. Suppan says in the ad. “Don’t be deceived.”
Other athletes who appear in the ad are Kurt Warner of the Arizona Cardinals football team, who formerly played with the St. Louis Rams, and Mike Sweeney of the Kansas City Royals baseball team. James Caviezel, the actor who played Jesus in the film “The Passion of the Christ,” also appears.
The stem-cell research issue has moved to the center of the Missouri Senate campaign between Jim Talent, the Republican incumbent, and Claire McCaskill, the Democratic challenger. Mr. Talent opposes the amendment; Ms. McCaskill supports it.
The actor Michael J. Fox, who suffers from Parkinson’s disease — one of many conditions that researchers hope to cure through stem-cell research — has taped a commercial supporting Ms. McCaskill and her stand on the issue.
Because that ad ran during an earlier World Series telecast, opponents of the amendment decided to respond in kind, even though the Senate election and the research amendment are state issues that only Missourians will vote on.
Connie Farrow, a spokeswoman for a group that favors the amendment, the Missouri Coalition for Life-Saving Cures, said that even though Mr. Suppan was one of her favorite Cardinal pitchers, she disagreed with his statements in the ad and would prefer the opinions of medical experts on questions of science.
“He’s wrong — respectfully, I say that,” Ms. Farrow said of Mr. Suppan in a telephone interview. “I would ask Jeff Suppan why Missourians don’t deserve to be treated the same as other Americans when it comes to health care.”
A spokeswoman for the anti-amendment group that distributed the ad said she was not authorized to speak to the media about it, but would try to arrange for an authorized representative to comment later today.
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