MLB moves All-Star Game out of Atlanta in response to Georgia's restrictive new voting law
Aux Features MLB
Major League Baseball has decided to take a stand against Georgia’s recently passed, highly restrictive new voting laws, announcing today that it’s decided to take its annual All-Star game out of Atlanta. The traditional Midsummer Classic, which assembles many of the best players in the league to face off against each other, typically rotates from stadium to stadium around the country, truly representing the spirit of U.S. democracy. Representing it better than this new Georgia law, leastways.
For those of you who have been trying to cut down on their daily screaming regimens by keeping their eyes off major political events for the last three months, the Georgia law is one of the most sweeping of the Republican party’s recent efforts to make American elections more “fair,” i.e., easier for them to win, by making it harder for the majority of people, and especially Black people, to vote. The laws contain a variety of new restrictions, ranging from a curtailing of absentee voting, to a demand for voter I.D. that disproportionately affects poorer Americans, to the criminalization of distributing food or water to people in line to vote. (You know you’re on the right side of history when “people trying to vote have too much access to life-giving nourishment” is high on your list of priorities to bring the hammer down on.)
Numerous Georgia legislators and major political figures have spoken up against the new laws, including voting rights activist Stacey Abrams and newly minted senator Raphael Warnock, who both cited the legacy of the South’s Jim Crow laws while criticizing the new measures. Meanwhile, a number of companies and organizations with business interests in the state have begun pushing back against the Georgia legislature’s efforts to restrict voting, too, including major employers like Coca-Cola and Delta Airlines. Now the MLB is hitting the state deep in its love of baseball, stating that “Major League Baseball fundamentally supports voting rights for all Americans and opposes restrictions to the ballot box.”
It’s an open question of how far these pushes from outside entities can be expected to go; in other years, we’d probably already be seeing murmurs from Hollywood about restricting filming in the state, as happened when the Georgia GOP was putting its wheezy energy behind anti-abortion legislation a few years back. The COVID-19 production shutdowns have presumably blunted the impact of the entertainment industry’s normally robust activities in the state, but this MLB move makes it clear that the eyes of the wider world are on Georgia at the moment.
78 Comments
Funny how Republicans hate corporations now.
It’s only “cancel culture” when Democrats do it. If it’s Republicans trying to punish someone for daring to use the free market to initiate change they’re simply defending your freedom from the “woke mob.”
Well they can’t quite figure out how to get their dumbass base to boycott anything with any effect
I remember back in 2003 when Bill O’Reilly, moral paragon that he was, tried to get his viewers to boycott everything from freedom fries to the Dixie Chicks. The best was him getting people to boycott Pepsi because they had Ludacris (my favorite rapper) and he said Luda was disrespectful to women and had lewd sexual content in his music etc. and Ludacris got the last laugh cause he’s trolled that hypocrite Bill in his music for that scumbag’s many sexual misconduct and cheating scandals.
Though as of late their base has been buying things they are supposed to boycott, just to destroy them with their many guns, and I don’t want to tell them they’re doing it wrong haha.
But something to remember. They dont care what side the “cancel culture” is on. They are keeping score and will just yell “cancel culture” is out of control and too many people will just take that at face value and associate it with left leaning behaviors.The right will artificially inflate the issues and numbers. Then blame the left.
There is no such thing as “Cancel Culture.” It’s called “Consequences.”
free market! free market!
Indeed. They used to complain about activist judges, and brag that they were strict constructionists who favored settling these matters through the political process and the free market (until Trump/McConnell stacked the judiciary with the kind of activist judges they like). Fucking hypocrite assholes.
I bet they really believe, though, that their judges aren’t “activist.”
To them you’re only an activist if you’re against the rich, straight, white, “Christian” male status quo
“Activist judge” is always, always a synonym for “a judge who makes any ruling I don’t like.” It’s a term invented specifically for that purpose by the GOP machine.
Republicans railing against ‘cancel culture’ call for boycotts… potato, potataho.
And the party of low/no corporate taxes is threatening to pull Delta’s fuel tax exemption in retaliation.
That’s not the funny part is. The funny part is, they can’t comprehend that they’re too toxic, costing businesses more than they spend on them, so they’ve concocted elaborate conspiracies, like giant pedophile rings that exist solely for democrats to have blackmail leverage over the titans of industry.
YUP.It’s almost like there’s more money out there than flagrant dickhead dollaz, and corporations would like as many of everyone’s dollaz as humanly possible.
I saw a story on Axios yesterday that some high-level Republicans are pushing for going whole-hog on Trump to the point of rebranding themselves the party of the working class. They’re completely insane.
Stunned that mlb did this. My hat’s off to them, hopefully other corporations will follow.
I’m more surprised they did it so quickly. I thought they might wait until May to see if the (quite justified) furor died down.
Waiting is not a option. Multiple states are trying to get voter suppression laws on the books. At this point, the GOP only understands consequences.
All corporations want is a return to some kind of normalcy. The GOP willfully ignored the pandemic instead of doing anything meaningful. In contrast, Biden’s administration has been making progress towards getting things back on track.
There has to be consequences. It’s like dealing with junkies. Or children.
All corporations anyone wants is a return to some kind of normalcy.FTFY
I think they wanted to get out in front of it. If there was a groundswell of players saying they wouldn’t play leading up to the game, there wouldn’t be time to move it, and that would’ve been a disaster. Doing it now avoids that, and it makes me think that the league got the impression that was likely to happen.
Glad they did it.Really it saved baseball fans headaches. Truist Park is a cluster%@#$ of corruption, built to give landowners a windfall of money without concern of the little things like parking, traffic management and more. For example, you would think they would have parking decks. You would be wrong. This way can charge for parking, charge for shuttle service and more. Also think their transit system would have a dropoff right there to facilitate fans. Also no. Its out in the suburbs yet built as if in a major city without space and no transit. If a real investigation was done on how that stadium was built, probably would find corruption starting at the governor’s office that went down all the way to the smallest city official.
Hear, hear!I believe the NCAA has done this a couple times, as well—once in 2015 (Indiana) and once in 2016 (North Carolina)—both times in protest of those states’ anti-gay legislation.Now, if only the NCAA could treat their student-athletes better!
That guy would definitely be one of those “You woke SJWs can’t take away our tradition of wearing Wahoo redface!” guys today.
Hit a politician where it hurts: the ad revenue and stock market.
It’s sadly the best chance of reversing these laws.As we stand now, most precedent (and the striking down of the heart of the VRA in 2013) leaves pretty much the entire process of creating voting regulations to the states and legislatures thereof. That, sadly, is likely the best signifier of Congressional action against GA and the insane outcome that the GOP is likely to be able to forestall complete irrelevancy for another decade by simply making it very difficult to let anyone else to vote – or in the case of AZ, simply give the legislature the chance to ignore the popular vote entirely.It’s not a long term solution, but it may buy them enough time for another demagogue and another few shots at violently overthrowing the national government. Apparently appealing to more of the country isn’t an option.The only way you CAN hit them is the corporate donor book.
When you subject yourself to greed, you can end up being controlled by those with more money than you, even if you have a stable life.
I’m anti-wealth because I have seen in my early years what greed for the almighty USD does to people – deprives them of any ethical, character, empathic, or moral values perhaps in an instant. Hell, a rich local business owner at a party my mother went to openly admitted he likes to control people with his money, perhaps his attempt to ‘swoon’ her by being honest.
More so, when you live in a sanctuary, with all that money, it’s common intuition to believe that they lose any need to interact with the world, and thus, apathy sets in, especially toward those that are not part of your inner circle. The US government has had corporate money influencing them for a couple generations now, and they are already jaded and out-of-touch, and their lies are becoming more obvious. It’s difficult to see change that involves breaking their banks, or upsetting their corporate bosses, or even shareholders because government officials nowadays want high political positions for an easy, consequence-free life, and not to…actually do their jobs as “servants of the people”.
The fact they are literally trying to overthrow the one active democratic role the public have here, and how long they have been rewriting laws against the public’s interest in favor of more corporate power(including arms deals and influencing war), leaves me little hope for systemic change. We are a nation of sociopaths, and we are ‘capital’ to them.
And vote for someone else.
Yup, and this is why laws like this will always stand in dirt poor states like Alabama and Mississippi. Georgia, unlike those states, actually has something to lose.
Ironically this year’s All Star game was going to be focused on honoring long-time Braves star Henry Aaron. I think it’s safe to say that he would be fine with not being “honored” in Atlanta under these circumstances.
Yeah I don’t think he loved Atlanta…the Braves had hired an Atlanta police officer, Calvin Wardlaw, to accompany Aaron everywhere he went. They registered Aaron under aliases in hotels: his mother’s maiden name, his assistant’s last name. They considered, then discarded “Babe Ruth.” Eventually they settled on A. Diefendorfer. Security ushered him through the back doors of ballparks to avoid crowds. The scares intensified as he neared the record. Someone threatened to kidnap his daughter Gaile. Several letter-writers identified the specific game during which they planned to shoot Aaron. The team turned the death threats—stacks of letters every day—over to the FBI. He was on edge even with autograph-seekers, whose pens flashed like guns. The Atlanta Journal pre-wrote an obituary, just in case.The night he broke the record, the Braves tripled security at Fulton County Stadium. Wardlaw kept his hand on his .38-caliber gun. When Aaron reached home plate, his mother, Estella, smothered him with a hug—not from delight, she said later, but to shield him from snipers.https://www.si.com/mlb/2021/01/22/hank-aaron-atlanta-braves-baseball-hall-of-fame
I’m not saying that he necessarily loved Atlanta, just that he’d be fine with any memorial to him being moved/delayed for this reason.
Oh definitely
How many cities would’ve been safe for a black man in his circumstances?
Yeah, it’s not specifically Atlanta. Had he broken the record in say, Boston or St. Louis, he’d have been in just as much danger.
Goddamn, that last line always kills me.
I’m curious to see if anyone will speak out about the new law at the Masters this week. Obviously it’s a different sport and a completely different situation, but this is something everyone should be concerned about.
I’m not sure PGA cares. Their majority demographic is pretty much the elderly end of the MAGA demographic. I’d heard they were attempting to lure in younger people in an attempt to reverse the aging out I keep reading is apparently happening to golfing, but this would seem to signal they’re perfectly OK with GA’s laws because their membership is too.
We’ll see, major league baseball isn’t exactly known for skewing towards the youth, given that they raise a fuss over things like bat flips and a lot of the owners (like that Mariners guy who just got in trouble for being racist) have very MAGA-esque views. Though a lot of their talent is based in young men from the Caribbean and Central America, so I think they have more leverage against racism than golfers do, even though they’re both international sports, golf has a lot more white guy gatekeeping. I hope PGA does something, some of their stars are pretty young, though I don’t know if they’d pull out of the masters as a protest.
Of course, the Georgia GOP reaction was predictable, once again claiming the role of the victim. I mean, all they really want is what’s good for Georgians, right? Right? Here are the greatest hits:“Georgians – and all Americans – should fully understand what the MLB’s knee-jerk decision means: cancel culture and woke political activists are coming for every aspect of your life, sports included.”—Georgia, Gov. Brian Kemp“Stacey Abrams’ leftist lies have stolen the All-Star Game from Georgia… …Georgia will not be bullied by socialists and their sympathizers.”—Georgia House Speaker David Ralston“The organization (MLB) has completely caved to the lies of the Left and America’s pastime has now become a political tool for the liberal mob.”—Rep. Buddy Carter (R), GeorgiaIt’s almost like they’re reading a script…I think this pretty much sums up the Georgia Republican Party’s reaction as a whole when the news broke on the Web:
So, the law THEY passed is now “lies of the left”. I see Trumpisms is still alive and well.
I heard about this and thought “Kemp’s going to call it ‘Cancel Culture’” and was proven right before the end of the news story.They are so predictable, it has become banal.
Good for MLB. I remember a few years ago Charlotte, NC, where I live, was supposed to host the basketball all-star game and then they lost it due to having those ridiculously unfair bathroom laws that targeted trans people. Also lost a lot of concert bookings as well from bands who refused to play in NC. It was upsetting yet predictable that lawmakers were so heartless that the loss of revenue was the only thing that changed their minds, not the fact that they were discriminating against trans people who already have it very hard. Though that approach worked, backlash against lost revenue and national shaming of the bathroom bill got it reversed and probably was a big reason Cooper won.
I hope that Georgia experiences a similar reversal due to a machine the size of MLB throwing their weight against these voter suppression bills. Typically republicans wank over corporations exercising their might.
Charlotte was another wonderful example of Republican hypocrisy. Not only in terms of the business politics of it all, but in terms of local vs. state vs. federal control.“We believe that all localities should be able to have control of their own laws and how they affect the people living there.”Charlotte: “OK, we’re going to allow transgender people to use the bathroom of their choice.”“NO THAT’S NOT WHAT WE MEANT YOU KNOW THAT COME ON NOW!”
The nice thing about MLB doing this is that it creates more momentum for other organizations to follow suit.
It may not be a primarily altruistic motive for the corporations, but at least they can provide the argument of this also being the smart money move to make.
Whew wait until MLB figures out how bad the voting laws are in NY. Surely they will move their headquarters? Any day now…
As with all of these measures, you wonder who this is really going to hurt. Same with directors declaring that they’ll never direct another film in Georgia. I get the cathartic response to the headline, but ultimately it seems like there are a lot of people (who, for all we know, strongly oppose the law) who stood to benefit greatly from having the game here. And not the hypothetical rich white male Republican that everyone seems to be picturing.
It’s important due to symbolism and standing up for what’s right. I can just as easily say think of all the people that will now benefit from this being moved to a new location. Also you know who’s fault this is right? The people trying to fuck over those same people.
This is Stacey Abrams position and she knows a lot more about it than I do, but in this case, poor people are going to lose far less than the rich people who donate to the GOP. Vendors and stadium workers lose on paycheck out of 82. Some service sector workers miss out on tips from a few thousand people coming from out of town. Braves ownership will lose more and the city, county and state will lose some tax revenue. Most importantly, this story might go away, but it is sure to be brought back in July when they remind people why the game isn’t being played in Georgia.
Yeah, I saw that. She clearly felt she had to sit on the fence a little (“I’m proud of the MLB for taking a stand, BUT…”), but I’m glad she made that point, and poor people don’t need to lose the same amount as rich people to feel it; in fact, the “far less” if that’s even the case, could still hurt. I was also a little disappointed in Obama for not bringing that up, since he’s usually one of the grown-ups about things like this.
it seems like there are a lot of people (who, for all we know, strongly
oppose the law) who stood to benefit greatly from having the game here.
Then those people should take it up with their representatives, who are the ones writing these laws.
In a real democracy you wouldn’t need to give people food and water while they wait to vote because it would generally take less than 20 minutes.
That part really does kill me. The water becomes necessary because of the wait, but if we actually do anything to make it easier to vote – maybe even fast, simple, and painless – my my my, then the WRONG kind of people definitely vote! We can’t have that.
The funny thing is, in a proper democracy where it is super easy to vote, I might have a problem with people handing out refreshments in the voting line. Since you generally don’t want volunteers for a certain candidate handing out donuts or coffee or branded water bottles to people voting. And elections officials needing to stop that kind of things makes running elections more work.But if you have cases where people are waiting hours to vote then yea, making sure they have the bare minimum amount of comfort, like water kind of becomes more important.
The weirdest hill one guy is dying on in my Twitter replies is that the Braves didn’t flee Atlanta for the suburbs, because they have an Atlanta mailing address. I tried to point out that there’s a difference between a city and a metro area, and how mailing addresses in unincorporated areas (and even some incorporated areas near cities) work, but it became clear that it’s pointless.I’m not sure if he’s most interested in defending billionaire baseball owners getting taxpayer-funded stadiums or voter suppression, but I also don’t care.
I grew up about five miles outside Baltimore, but had a Baltimore mailing address because we lived at one end of our zip code and the other ended up pushing across the city line by a couple hundred yards, so the post office officially used Baltimore as the location.I didn’t live in the city. The Braves don’t play in Atlanta (although they are actually closer to the city line then one might think). Your friend is mistaken.
Yeah, I even looked at the maps to make sure the location relative to the city was the same as I remembered. It’s not even in the same county as the city (it’s in Cobb, and the city is in Fulton and DeKalb), though as you said, it’s not as far away as, say, the Angels are from LA.But as you note, even though it’s only 10-ish miles outside the city, it’s very much not the city. It’s the suburbs, and the Braves moved there because they got the demographics and the tax breaks that they wanted.
Less than that. The Atlanta city limits go right up to the Chattahoochee River in that area, so it’s only, like, a mile and a half away.
I don’t even understand what he’s trying to say… Like, what is the hill he’s constructing?As to your second paragraph, yeah, I will never understand the random schlub carrying water for a group of people who wouldn’t piss on said schlub if he/she were on fire. “But, but… one day, I could be a billionaire, too! I’m just one brilliant idea away!”
He’s trying to claim that the Braves didn’t abandon the city of Atlanta for the suburbs because they have an Atlanta mailing address and are still in the Atlanta metro.There’s no problem with calling themselves the “Atlanta Braves,” but the team breathlessly complaining that MLB moving the ASG is hurting the city (they explicitly said “our city”) is laughable given that moving the team to the suburbs hurt the city a hell of a lot more than losing one All-Star Game would, even it were being held at Turner Field.
Ohhh, I gotcha now. Yeah, that is a very dumb hill. Even a mole hill, one might say.Also, I’m a fan of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, so I know a little bit about odd geographic naming. 🙂
I mainly like to poke fun at the fact that their name is “The The Angels Angels.” :DAnd it’s always fun to point out that they haven’t actually been in LA since they played at Wrigley Field just to watch the confused look some people get on their faces if they didn’t know about that Wrigley Field.
Oh yeah, I know the whole shebang-a-bang. And yeah, The The Angels Angels is always a good time. 🙂
Moving the all-star game is one thing. Hollywood turning its back on Georgia would be another entirely. The state has spent a great deal of money in tax incentives and such bringing movies and TV production to the state. I guess we’ll see what happens.
There’s a lot of investment in studios and some directors have said they would not work in GA, but not a lot. I was curious and looked up Tyler Perry and this, since he’s a big supporter of GA and fixing their equality issues. He is very against the new law and is vocal about it, however he is not for boycotts probably because of the $ he sunk into his studio there. I can understand him not wanting to lose money on his investment and he does help the community by existing, but maybe he could do more? He is very wealthy and has influence. Basically it seems he’s urging people to vote and thinks the DOJ should do something, he’s probably donating to the right causes too I’m guessing.
Good, fuck Georgia.
Amazing how fast we went from “Thanks for saving democracy, Georgia!” to “Good, fuck Georgia.” Georgia has lots of amazing people doing amazing work in it.
Great first step. The major sweep of the leg will be movie & TV studios. So many shows and films are made in Georgia (“Made…in Georgia”) that it’s become their biggest new industry. They lose that and they’ll back down.
Have any of you actually read the legislation in question? It’s really nothing that crazy.
Neither were Jim Crow laws, when you read them.The issue is how the laws are able to be applied, because the legislation does two main things:- It turns a lot of things that either were allowed or should be allowed into optional things. Like the infamous “no water” thing. The biggest defense of that from the losers is that poll workers can do it, but no one else. The problem is:“No, we don’t have the manpower or financial resources to provide water in these certain areas, which just coincidentally are areas with large populations of minorities and which have been disproportionally affected by previous polling station closures so lines are far longer than they should be.”- It takes power out of the hands of local officials and the Secretary of State when it comes to monitoring and certifying the election results, and puts that power into the legislature indirectly (the “nonpartisan” panel called for is appointed by the legislature) and directly (they can appoint people to take over for local elections officials at any time). After an election where those officials were the ones standing between a fair election and the Republicans trying to openly commit treason, that does not bode well for the future.This is a bad law. It is bad for minority voters. It is bad for ALL voters.
Yep. Ain’t hard.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/03/upshot/georgia-election-law-turnout.htmlTimes ran an analysis this morning that makes me (cautiously) optimistic that these laws will still not stop the will of the people.And regardless of what the laws said, the intention behind them is disgusting (black voter suppression), as well as the fact that they are aiming to “fix” a problem THAT DOES NOT FUCKING EXIST!! Good for MLB. Hoping Marvel pulls up stakes next.
Have any of you actually read the legislation in question? It’s really nothing that crazy.
I read an article arguing why this was the wrong move and I have to say it convinced me. MLB is losing a huge showcase to trumpet voting rights and even register people to vote. It’s losing the ability to organize protests for the cause they claim to believe in. It’s also going to hurt residents who would benefit from the game in terms of a paycheck or increased traffic at their businesses.Moving the game earns MLB a pat on the back and costs them basically nothing. But I don’t think it changes anything. Keeping it there would allow them to do good work, but it would take actual work.
Baseball did a lot of that kind of civic engagement last year during the 2020 election.https://www.mlb.com/voting-resourcesThis time around it does feel like a boycott/relocation really is the better choice because a) there are no major elections this year, so any action is going to be a deferred impact, with no immediate statement of effect; b) a lot of other states have identical legislation pending, so a quick decisive, “no” may be a more broad disincentive; c) working in the state seems like something the Braves, who don’t have the option of leaving Atlanta, are still (better) positioned to do.
These are very good points. Thank you.