MLB’s All-Star move a sign of change
The most intriguing part of Major League Baseball’s decision to pull the 2021 All-Star Game out of Atlanta and move it to Denver has nothing to do with what the political left or right is pontificating (or screaming over each other) on your favorite cable channel.
The fascinating part is how corporate America is reacting to matters concerning major sports and inequality in 2021.
After spending a good chunk of Monday night — thanks, CBS, for that painfully late tipoff on the NCAA basketball championship — reading and listening about how the Georgia election law was rewritten and signed, I was convinced of two things:
⏩ Jim Crow has returned in full force and, if we’re not careful, only whites will be eligible to vote in the notto-distant future.
⏩ Only a few changes were made to help validate voters and ensure fair results. It will be easier to vote now.
Both points of view, of course, are good old Georgia country cow chips. There is hyperbole on the left. And a deep cynicism on the right. So deep even a cautious group like MLB wanted no part of it.
If you are having any
trouble understanding the situation, let’s break it down so even a sports columnist can explain: The country had an election in November. Joe Biden won fair and square. In Pennsylvania, Arizona, Michigan and most notably in Georgia, Biden got more votes. The Loser cried the election was fixed. It wasn’t fixed. And neither were the two Georgia senate runoffs that saw the balance of legislative power change and a Trump automaton not only lose her seat, but her position as co-owner of the local WNBA franchise.
Still, The Loser continued to cry the results were fraudulent and the conspiracy was spread to all corners of our nation. Long and loud enough that polls still show 70-75% of The Loser’s party think the election was invalid. No proof? Doesn’t seem to matter. The Great and Powerful Loser has spoken.
All this led to the insurrection of Jan. 6 at the U.S. Capitol where people with funny hats, Confederate flags and black hearts produced one of the worst days of our American democracy. And now they want to take a run at America’s pastime.
The change in the Georgia law is not an attempt to make voting fairer by the state legislature or Republican Gov. Brian Kemp. It’s a crybaby response to having lost the game. America’s judicial officials even went to the video for further review and made a clear ruling. No election fraud. If this attempt to change the rules had been brought to professional sports owners, Georgia would have gotten laughed out of the boardroom.
But this is politics, and politics is a funny game. Even a week after he told ESPN he would strongly support moving the All-Star Game out of Georgia, President Biden sidestepped a bit Tuesday.
“It’s reassuring to see that for-profit operations and businesses are speaking up about how these new Jim Crow laws are just antithetical to who we are,” Biden said. “There’s another side to it, too. When they, in fact, move out of Georgia, the people who need the help the most — people who are making hourly wages — sometimes get hurt the most. I think it’s a very tough decision for a corporation to make, or group to make, but I respect them when they make that judgment. And I support whatever judgment they make.”
Asked whether the Masters should pull out of Georgia this week to protest the new law — something that never was going to happen — Biden said, “I think that’s up to the Masters.”
The most extreme parts of the Georgia bill were modified, but still it got no Democratic support. Requiring a Georgia ID for an absentee ballot and forbidding anyone other than poll workers to distribute food or water to voters in line … cutting off absentee ballot applications 11 days before the election, limiting absentee ballot drop boxes, allowing the state to take control of “underperforming” local election systems … none of this was going to go over well with Democrats or Black people. The original versions of the bill eliminated Sunday voting — the Black community often organizes “souls to polls” after church services — but was later amended to two mandatory Saturday voting days and two optional Sundays.
One man’s tweaking to gain an advantage is another man’s Jim Crow, but the spirit of the bill is clear and it isn’t to get the most legitimate voters to the polls. So when The Loser charged in and called for a boycott of MLB and “woke” corporate sponsors that he said were interfering with fair and free elections, you knew the beanballs would be flying.
“Are you listening Coke, Delta and all?” Trump said in a statement.
Those who want to attack the MLB decision can find diversions. MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred is a member at Augusta National, and eyes are on him to see if he’ll attend the Masters. Augusta has a problematic history with racism, sexism and classism. If Manfred showed his face in a green jacket, he’d be castigated as a raging hypocrite.
The fact is, as Biden pointed out, the removal of the All-Star Game will hurt a number of hourly workers, and it is a shame. They are collateral damage in a bigger fight for freedom.
And what about those Colorado voting laws? There is some restrictive stuff there, too, even more restrictive than Georgia in a few cases blared by Gov. Kemp, Fox and conservative social media. Fact checkers said otherwise. Going point by point, The Denver Post wrote, “By nearly all measures, Colorado makes it more convenient to vote and is consistently and widely hailed by Democratic and Republican officials alike as among the safest and most accessible states in the U.S. to cast a ballot.” Colorado elections are run primarily by mail and ballots are mailed automatically to eligible voters.
“For baseball to have played the All-Star Game in Atlanta — while also honoring the late Hank Aaron — without any real significant denouncing of the new law would have been for it to take an unnecessary risk,” wrote Howard Bryant, a prominent Black voice in sports journalism, on ESPN.com. “It would have exposed itself to the embarrassment of playing its midseason showcase in a state that sought once again to aggressively disenfranchise and suppress Black votes. It would have done so just months after its historic inclusion of the statistics of Negro League players into the mainstream record books. And it would have done so after stating its commitment to no longer be a passive observer to the nation’s massive social upheaval.”
Corporate America has long been an ally of the Republican Party. Small taxes make for big buddies. In Trump’s reinvented party, however, populism is a powerhouse. Corporations sometimes are the enemy. That’s why this is so fascinating. With corporations, morality or immorality doesn’t rule. The bottom line does. When he took a knee, Colin Kaepernick wasn’t good for business. So it shrugged when the NFL blackballed him.
Over the past year, we struggled with police brutality, racial inequity, COVID, the presidential election. A brutal year, yet an important one in our history. America has emerged more caring. I want to believe we are a better America in April 2021 than we were in February 2020.
At any rate, Corporate America is pragmatic. The almost across-the-board corporate support of getting out to vote — a safe way not to enrage either side — rings mighty hollow if it supported a voter restriction law a few months later.
You might sell fewer Cokes for a month or two. Fewer folks might not hop on Delta for a bit. They and others will survive and prosper. If Corporate America believes less restrictive voting laws are good business, it is going to watch Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas refuse to throw out the first pitch at the Rangers’ opener because of the MLB All-Star boycott and shrug its massive shoulders.