TORONTO – The discourse is too easily hijacked in these disquieting culture-war days, distilling complicated issues into a rhetorical jingoism that prevents rational conversation and nuanced arguments.
Predictably, Major League Baseball landed in the woke-versus-MAGA fray with its decision Friday to pull the all-star game from Atlanta, in protest of Georgia’s new election bill that places several restrictions around the state’s voting process. Media proxies spent Saturday dutifully howling into the echo chambers of their respective audiences, the usual bluster replacing anything that might resemble productive debate.
Rather than falling down the rabbit hole, let’s emphasize that any election reform that wins approval on a strict party-line vote, rather than bi-partisan support, is designed to give someone the shaft. In the wake of Stacey Abrams’ loss to Republican Gov. Brian Kemp in 2018 by less than 55,000 seats, after Democrats flipped a pair of senate seats in last year’s election, with former U.S. President Donald Trump’s claims of widescale voting fraud debunked, the Georgia law is a blatant attack on the voters – often Black – who fuelled those gains.
None of this is comfortable territory for Major League Baseball, which despite cloaking itself in the legacy of Jackie Robinson, was the last of the major North American sports leagues to respond to the killing of George Floyd last year. That commissioner Rob Manfred reacted so quickly this time, consulting only with his executive council rather than all 30 team owners, is a clear indication he felt the sport couldn’t duck this and wait for things to blow over.
Tony Clark, head of the players union, may have helped set events in motion when he told Michael Silverman of the Boston Globe on March 26 that players “would look forward to having that conversation” about whether the all-star game should remain in Atlanta. U.S. President Joe Biden said he’d support pulling the game from Atlanta while several companies, Coca-Cola and Delta Air Lines among them, criticized the law.
The possibility of at least some players boycotting and tarnishing the event carried risk, and some corporate sponsors were surely wary of the association. But Manfred also met with The Players Alliance’s leadership in recent days, and MLB needed to prove its statements on social justice over the past year weren’t just lip-service.
“I have decided that the best way to demonstrate our values as a sport is by relocating this year’s all-star game and MLB draft,” Manfred said in the release announcing the decision. “Major League Baseball fundamentally supports voting rights for all Americans and opposes restrictions to the ballot box. … Fair access to voting continues to have our game’s unwavering support.”
Even if pragmatism factored into Manfred’s calculus as much as altruism, Major League Baseball in effect calling out the Republican sponsors and supporters of the Georgia bill represented a break from its carefully cultivated political protections.
Clearly rattled, Republican lawmakers threatened retaliation, with South Carolina Rep. Jeff Duncan going after baseball’s prized federal anti-trust exemption.
How Manfred reacts if Texas and Florida pass legislation currently under consideration that is similar to Georgia’s bears watching, but it’s going to be hard for the sport to walk things back after picking a side, and pulling millions of dollars in economic activity from the state.
“I support the decision,” said Toronto Blue Jays second baseman Marcus Semien, a member of both The Players Alliance and the union’s influential executive subcommittee. “It's kind of a tough situation there where I personally, and I'm sure I speak for the Alliance, we want to support Georgia and the people who are affected by this bill by encouraging people to vote, doing everything you can to vote on Election Day.
“I know as a kid growing up, my mom went to work and it was hard just to get off work and go and go vote that day. Hopefully other states can make things easier for working class people, especially in Georgia, in those communities. I'm sure The Players Alliance will help that community and support them.”
Semien credited the Alliance leadership of Curtis Granderson, CC Sabathia and Edwin Jackson for leading discussions with Manfred, but added that the issue had been a topic of discussion in the Blue Jays clubhouse over the past week “just to make sure everybody knew what’s going on.”
“We were just waiting to see what happened,” said Semien. “I got the notification on my phone that they made that decision and I thought it was pretty quick, so that's good. I support it and we'll move on from there.”
Added Blue Jays outfielder Randal Grichuk: “Any time there’s voter suppression, it needs to be called out and obviously MLB stepped up and made the decision to move it. I definitely support MLB with their call.”
Such drastic action isn’t unprecedented for North American sports, as the NFL stripped Phoenix of the 1993 Super Bowl when Arizona voters declined to make Martin Luther King Jr. Day a state holiday, and the NBA stripped Charlotte of the 2017 all-star game in response to a law scaling back anti-discrimination protections for members of the LGBTQ community.
Major League Baseball responded eight days after the bill was signed into law.
“It's not the first time sports is trying to make a difference with situations like this,” said Blue Jays manager Charlie Montoyo, who added later: “I don't know all the specifics of those new laws in Georgia – I have an idea – but I supported the MLB decision to move the all-star game. I think every citizen should have the right to vote with ease.”
Unfathomable as it may be that saying this is necessary, let’s be clear that advocating for the right to vote isn’t politics, it’s a foundational right. All Major League Baseball did was stand up for a basic ideal, no matter how much the diversionary what-aboutism attempts to distract from that.
