MLB moves All-star Game to Denver’s Coors Field
DENVER (AP) — Atlanta, you’re out. Denver, you’re up.
Major League Baseball swiftly moved the All-star Game to hitterfriendly Coors Field on Tuesday after pulling the Midsummer Classic from Atlanta over objections to extensive changes to Georgia’s voting laws.
Coors Field last hosted the All-star Game in 1998. The game will be held July 13.
“We appreciate their flexibility and enthusiasm to deliver a firstclass event for our game and the region,” MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred
said in a statement. “We look forward to celebrating our sport’s best players and entertaining fans around the world.”
MLB decided to move the game from Truist Park in Atlanta in response to Georgia voting changes signed into law by Republican Gov. Brian Kemp on March 25. Critics, including the CEOS of Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines and Coca-cola, have condemned the changes as being too restrictive.
The Georgia laws includes new limits on voting by mail and greater legislative control over how elections are run, amid a push in Republican-led states to reduce voting options after former president Donald Trump made baseless claims of widespread fraud in last year’s election.
Democratic state officials in Colorado have touted their state’s mailin voting system, which began in 2013, for its ease and accessibility. In the November election, there were more than 350 ballot drop boxes around the state along with a ballot tracking system that allowed voters to trace their votes as they were accepted and counted.
Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold praised the MLB decision, crediting it to the state’s “national gold standard for elections.”