Players: Boycott The ATL All-Star Game
My Black friend wants the game gone. MLB players should refuse to play at Truist Park.
My friend Bryan Grant was a Braves season-ticket holder before Covid-19. He’s Black.
Bryan and his wife, Avis, had season tickets at Turner Field and Truist Park, but did not renew this season because of the virus. They will re-up in 2022.
If he was still a season-ticket holder, Bryan would be eligible for July 13, 2021 All-Star Game tickets at Truist Park. He wouldn’t go, even if the country was virus free. He thinks the game should be moved out of the state because of the voter suppression bill signed into Georgia law last Thursday.
“It’s the right thing to do,” Bryan said of a boycott of the game. “We, as Blacks, always get the goal posts moved when we try to score. The rules always change because they don’t want us to surpass them. We will never stop playing.
“I hope they do move it so Georgia can feel the loss economically.”
One after another, athletes and caretakers of sports, and the rest of us as fans, face moral decisions in this era of racial reckoning.
Here comes another accounting of our morals barreling down the tracks.
This is not a political issue and partisan politics. This is a Civil Rights issue. The Big Lie—that the election was stolen—has a brother, The Big Lie II, that says Republicans in Georgia have fixed election integrity issues. And, of course, there was no widespread fraud to fix.
Open this link. It is from The Philadelphia Inquirer and shows a picture of six white men signing Georgia’s voter suppression bill into law. Hanging above them is a painting of a plantation that, once upon a time, used slaves. This is the Callaway place where dogs took chunks out of the legs of “runaway slaves”, which most of us would label now a concentration camp and people running for their lives.
The painting hangs in Gov. Brian Kemp’s office. That’s fitting, and ugly.
The only thing these men will understand is if something costs them money. Then they will sit up straight and at least cock an ear toward the debate.
So let’s talk about the millions of dollars that will be lost to the state if Major League Baseball stands up on two legs and moves the All-Star Game out of Truist Park because players will boycott the game.
Tony Clark of the Major League Baseball Players Association told The Boston Globe that he is inviting discussion about whether players will still want to come to Cobb County for the All-Star Game on July 13.
Will the players stand up as one to the voter suppression bill that just breezed through the legislature? What will the NFL say? And the NCAA?
John Collins of the Hawks, a squared away guy, should call Freddie Freeman of the Braves, a squared away guy, and make the case for Black folks.
If this was the NBA All-Star Game, there is no doubt the game would be moved. But this is baseball, a sport played mostly by white players and watched mostly by white fans.
If the Dodgers’ Mookie Betts says there is no way he is playing what does his white teammate, pitcher Trevor Bauer, say? And Cody Bellinger?
Meanwhile, ESPN, the broadcast partner of Major League Baseball, had no mention of the news Saturday of Clark being willing to talk owners and teams about an All-Star Game boycott.
The Braves do not have an African-American player on their roster. Pitcher Touki Toussaint made a bid for a spot, but a shoulder strain has put him on the shelf. There is no voice in the Atlanta clubhouse for the rights of Black voters.
Braves’ shortstop Dansby Swanson was a vocal supporter of Black Lives Matter last spring and summer. What about now?
The voter suppression measure is not as threatening as violence against Blacks, but it is threatening in its own sinister way.
The overthrow of the bill should not be left to Congress because Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia could refuse to lend his vote to dismantle the filibuster, which would allow the Senate to pass federal legislation on voting rights. There needs to be public pressure.
The financial hit on Atlanta sports would continue a dreadful run of financial calamity. The Final Four was set for Atlanta in 2020 and then cancelled because of the Pandemic. Three major college football games were cancelled in September.
The city of Charlotte had to spend millions on public relations to restore tourism after its politicians tried to pass a bill aimed at transgender people. The NBA pulled out its All-Star Game, which was worth an estimated $100 million.
The Braves revenue fell by almost $300 million from 2019 to 2020 without fans. The club has boasted that the All-Star Game will be the first 100 percent attended event in Atlanta since the Pandemic started. It shouldn’t happen, not unless the federal government steps in and renders the Georgia law moot.
If Black baseball players ask for some solidarity from white players—and get it— Atlanta could see another mega-event ripped from its grasp. The business community can lay that at the feet of the Republican legislature.
We should remember the words of broadcaster Vin Scully as Hank Aaron was mobbed after clubbing No. 715 to break Babe Ruth’s record;
“What a marvelous moment for baseball,” Scully said. “What a marvelous moment for Atlanta and the state of Georgia. What a marvelous moment for the country and the world.
“A Black man is getting a standing ovation in the Deep South for breaking a record of an all-time baseball idol.”
Baseball has a chance for another marvelous moment. If it doesn’t seize it, MLB can cancel all the Jackie Robinson celebrations April 15. They will be hollow.
Read the piece on your “survey” of 9 people in the Battery. Take a look at the MLB and T mobile site comments on the subject and write about those. Overwhelming against the move. This all star game in our city would have been a fantastic tribute to the legacy of Hank Aaron and his perseverance to become one of the greatest ball players of all time.
MLB ripped it away because of what they perceive as unjust voting laws. Read the law. It’s in place to preserve voting integrity. You can hand out water and Chick Fil A sandwiches if you want, at 151 ft away from the polling location. 6 forms of photo ID accepted and a free one if needed at the DMV. Not everyone agrees with MLBs interpretation and it should cost them.