Baseball at Fort Bragg

An artists rendering of the under-construction ballpark
in Fort Bragg where the Braves and Marlins are to play
on July 3.

Last November there was a brief political kefluffle over "paid patriotism," a Pentagon practice of paying pro sports teams to hold events honoring the military. The leading practitioner of it among MLB teams: the Atlanta Braves, who got $450,000 in 2012-15, according to a Senate report. (The Twins, whose pregame flag-raising ceremony draws frequent laudatory comment from visiting writers, got nothing.)

Interesting, therefore, that the Braves will be the "home team" on July 3 when they and the Miami Marlins play on a new field at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. The field is being built at the Army base by MLB and the players union. After the game -- to be ESPN's Sunday Night Baseball game -- will be converted to a softball facility for the troops there.

Which is all well and good as a one-time thing. But I hope this doesn't become an annual event in which MLB and the MLBPA pay for a new field at one installation or another and a regular-season game is played there every July 4 weekend. They can build the yards, that's fine, but after this, let's skip the self-congratulatory wallowing. The gesture will be more meaningful if it's not such an obvious publicity stunt.