Baseball strikes out in Georgia
The election stakes couldn’t have been higher. Georgia, long a red bastion of conservatism, was on the verge of turning blue for the first time in decades. If it did, the repercussions would be immense.
As the final votes trickled in, the result became clear. The hard-fought battle, while close, had produced a clear winner. In keeping with tradition, all that was needed was a concession speech so that a smooth transition could begin. But alas, it was not to be.
The losing candidate, in a bid to stay relevant, refused to concede on the basis of alleged voting irregularities. Even to this day, no concession has been offered.
Sore loser? Yes, but with a caveat. Just because evidence of widespread voting chicanery wasn’t uncovered doesn’t mean it didn’t occur. Therefore, while conceding would have been honorable, it would also be important to fix the “rigged” system.
Ladies and gentlemen, meet your losing candidate: Democrat Stacey Abrams, candidate for governor in 2018. Several points:
1) Some will argue that Ms. Abrams’ situation, and that of former President Donald Trump, who also hasn’t conceded, are non-analogous, since Mr. Trump alleged voter fraud, while Ms. Abrams claimed voter suppression. Wrong. They are one and the same. Obviously, there are many types of voting irregularities, but the bottom line is that when votes are “suppressed” — whatever that means — then, by definition, that constitutes fraud.
Put another way, if a citizen’s legal vote is not counted, then that person has been disenfranchised, and thus, fraud has occurred.
2) The situations aren’t actually comparable for a simple reason: Ms. Abrams lost a close race, but not a nail-biter (losing by 55,000 votes out of 3.9 million), whereas Mr. Trump fell short by just 11,000 (out of 5 million). If fraud occurred, changing the outcome would have been much easier in the race where the margins were razor-thin. Ms. Abrams is certainly under no obligation to concede, but no one with a straight face can make the argument that her election was stolen, given the relatively large margin separating the candidates.
3) Stacey Abrams is a talented, smart and effective leader, so she should be taken at her word that the system has flaws. Ditto for Mr. Trump’s claims. In that light, given that the goal is protecting the integrity of every Georgian’s vote, regardless of Party, all sides should be applauding the new voting regulations.
Standing opposed seems to jettison the idea of an equaltreatment-for-all, special-treatment-for-none voting system. And that’s just not peachy. After the voting laws were enacted, Major League Baseball weighed in with what it hoped would be great “fan”fare by selfrighteously yanking this year’s All-Star game from Atlanta, hoping it would teach Georgia a lesson. How incredibly stupid.
Baseball tried to hit a grand slam but ended up whiffing, since many of the law’s opponents are against the All-Star game boycott, including Stacey Abrams herself. She applauds MLB for its sentiment, but she, along with many other Democrats, is smart enough to know that a disproportionate number of black Georgians will be adversely affected. Restaurants, hotels, and retail stores that are in desperate need of economic injection will now be left out in the cold, as employees watch people in another city reap the significant financial windfall.
The message is simple: baseball fans want to be entertained by — imagine this — watching baseball. They don’t need lectures, don’t want to see their last haven destroyed by politicization, and, most of all, abhor being told what to say and how to think. By sticking its nose where it doesn’t belong, the MLB “braintrust” succeeded only in driving another nail into Baseball’s coffin.
In 1978, the World Series garnered 44.2 million viewers. In 2020 — when everyone was supposed to watch as a welcome diversion from the pandemic — the number was a paltry 9.8 million.
Participation in youth baseball sits at an all-time low, as today’s athletes prefer fast-paced games over laborious 9-inning marathons. And when participation drops, so does interest in attending/watching games.
Baby boomers, who are the last generation to view baseball as “America’s pastime,” are passing away, but they aren’t being replaced with Millennials or Generation Zers, as only seven percent of MLB viewers are reportedly under 18.
If Major League Baseball continues making unforced errors, and doesn’t reinvent itself by focusing on the sport instead of politics, America’s pastime will soon devolve into a sport past its time.
Yogi Berra said, “The future ain’t what it used to be.”
Got that right.