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Major League Baseball Strikes Out Again on Black America
Townhall.com ^ | June 12, 2021 | Martin Baker

Posted on 06/12/2021 4:07:11 AM PDT by Kaslin

By moving the All-Star Game from Atlanta to Denver because Georgia is protecting peoples’ votes, Major League Baseball is hypocritical in its rationale.

MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred stated that the “best way to demonstrate our values as a sport” would be to move the upcoming All-Star Game and its Entry Level Draft out of Georgia. The decision came after the state’s legislature passed and Governor Brian Kemp subsequently signed the “Election Integrity Act of 2021” into law. Opponents of the new law decried it as racist, oppressive and disenfranchising.

This voter integrity measure has been attacked for allegedly denying persons of color the ability to vote. It’s claimed it will punish those who simply want to offer comforts such as food or water to voters standing in line or those without identification. But these premises are based on the bigotry to low expectations that blacks cannot obtain identification or get to the polls without the aid and protection of government.

MLB nonetheless abandoned Atlanta, becoming the third league to move an event to exert political pressure. The NFL moved the 1993 Super Bowl from Arizona to Los Angeles after Arizona voters rejected Martin Luther King Day as a state holiday, and the NBA moved its All-Star Game out of Charlotte in 2017 after the North Carolina legislature passed a law requiring transgender persons to use public restrooms corresponding to the sex on their birth certificate.

While the governing bodies of a professional sport are well within their rights to put their events anywhere they want, doing so under the premise of being socially responsible is flawed at best and inherently wrong at worst. It is hypocrisy more often than not, and it usually affects the same groups of people it purports to respect and want to protect.

That’s why the All-Star Game moving to Denver has led to a lawsuit on behalf of local Atlanta businesses.

Atlanta and its metro area will no longer have the anticipated major economic infusion that they bid for and had been awarded long ago. Cobb County Georgia officials are now speculating a loss of nearly $100 million in potential revenue.

There are far-reaching implications for the decision beyond the virtue-signaling affirmation for Manfred and his colleagues that will soon be forgotten by the rest of America. Keep in mind that nearly a third of all businesses in Atlanta are owned by black Americans. Nearly 8,000 hotel rooms in the metro area had been on standby for the League, its fans and the media who would have been there to cover everything surrounding the event.

And some of that revenue would have been used to repay the financing of Truist Park, which benefitted from nearly $400 million in public funding for its construction. Cobb County and its taxpayers are on the hook annually for nearly $23 million to retire that debt.

That’s why the Job Creators Network (JCN) sued MLB – albeit unsuccessfully – for $100 million in economic damages to Atlanta businesses and a $1 billion punitive fine. “MLB robbed the small businesses of Atlanta,” said JCN CEO and president Alfredo Ortiz, “many of them minority-owned… we want the game back where it belongs.”

Think about it. If the rationale for moving the All-Star Game out of Atlanta is to protect the integrity of the game and stand in support of “disenfranchised” and “suppressed” – meaning black – voters, then why is MLB now rewarding Denver with all of the economic benefits of hosting the game...which is nearly 76 percent white.

Hypocrisy much?

Martin Baker is a member of the Project 21 black leadership network.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: atlanta; baseball; blackamericans; colorado; georgia; jobcreators; law; lawsuit; mlb; race; sports; voting; woke
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To: Kaslin
Hopefully cities will put performance requirements and penalty clauses in their contracts for sporting events in the future. Sure, there will be "acts of God" like hurricanes or Chinese biowarfare which require cancellations, but the sports leagues should pay through the nose for cancellations based on political differences or players' strikes.

Although I do have a problem with the $100 million estimate. The stadium holds a little over 40,000. That's an estimate of $2,500 per person. I think someone is pulling numbers out of his backside for that.

21 posted on 06/12/2021 7:04:06 AM PDT by KarlInOhio (Police should refuse duty at NBA venues. Let them wallow in their desired chaos without police.)
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To: EEGator
There’s European countries that might be socialist, but they don’t have 40 million violent apes in every city.

They just have the Muslim call to prayer and jihad five times per day.

22 posted on 06/12/2021 7:05:23 AM PDT by KarlInOhio (Police should refuse duty at NBA venues. Let them wallow in their desired chaos without police.)
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To: Kaslin

And I’ve heard that Colorado’s voting laws are more restrictive than the new law passed in Georgia. So baseball’s attempt to make a political statement isn’t even factually correct, in moving the game based on the alleged racism and bigotry of the new Georgia law.


23 posted on 06/12/2021 7:24:19 AM PDT by Dilbert San Diego
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To: EEGator

Those “violent apes” are Americans too, and almost all are kind and decent people. Meanwhile our Government imports Somalis and Muslims by the tens of thousands and turns a blind eye to illegal immigration. Many have no plans to adopt the American way of life.


24 posted on 06/12/2021 7:39:07 AM PDT by IgnorerOfLiberals
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To: stockpirate

When MLB looks in the mirror it sees BLM.


25 posted on 06/12/2021 7:53:44 AM PDT by dblshot (RActually Texas City)
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To: stockpirate
Arizona Diamondbacks just held Pride Night.


26 posted on 06/12/2021 8:03:54 AM PDT by Tommy Revolts
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To: Vaquero
I love baseball and my favorite team. Haven’t watched any in the past two seasons because they’ve gone over to the dark side.

I punish baseball by streaming my two favorite teams games into my home using an illegal streaming service. Not only do I not give them any revenue, I'm actually costing them revenue.

Make sure to use a VPN and go to https://mlbshow.com

27 posted on 06/12/2021 8:11:42 AM PDT by usconservative (When The Ballot Box No Longer Counts, The Ammunition Box Does. (What's In Your Ammo Box?))
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To: usconservative

I won’t give the WOKE players the satisfaction of watching them. They are dead to me.


28 posted on 06/12/2021 8:46:22 AM PDT by Vaquero ( Don't pick a fight with an old guy. If he is too old to fight, he'll just kill you. )
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To: Dilbert San Diego
So baseball’s attempt to make a political statement isn’t even factually correct...

Well, the Wokerati don't care about facts, just virtue signalling.

Caring about facts is another mark of White Supremacy.< /sarcasm>

29 posted on 06/12/2021 8:51:07 AM PDT by Lysandru
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To: Kaslin

MLB struck out on America, not “black America”.


30 posted on 06/12/2021 8:56:03 AM PDT by Billthedrill
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To: Kaslin

I wish the Atlanta Businesses success with their lawsuit!


31 posted on 06/12/2021 9:29:04 AM PDT by Notthereyet (We're so angry we can spit pea pellets at a tree and drill the dang tree. )
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To: Lysandru
Caring about facts is another mark of White Supremacy.

From your keyboard to God's monitor. Truth.

32 posted on 06/12/2021 9:29:23 AM PDT by usconservative (When The Ballot Box No Longer Counts, The Ammunition Box Does. (What's In Your Ammo Box?))
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To: Kaslin

There are plenty of black people playing baseball. They just happen to be from the Dominican Republic, Cuba and Puerto Rico.


33 posted on 06/12/2021 9:29:57 AM PDT by Clemenza
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To: Kaslin

**This voter integrity measure has been attacked for allegedly denying persons of color the ability to vote.**

i.e. Black people are too stupid to register and vote.


34 posted on 06/12/2021 9:54:32 AM PDT by nagant
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To: KarlInOhio

Not Poland, Hungary, and Austria.


35 posted on 06/12/2021 10:21:42 AM PDT by EEGator
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To: EEGator

Isn’t it the truth? Makes me sick.


36 posted on 06/12/2021 10:22:54 AM PDT by dinodino ( )
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To: IgnorerOfLiberals

“Those “violent apes” are Americans too, and almost all are kind and decent people.”

Stupidest thing I have ever read on FR.
Come here to Philly, or Baltimore, or Camden, or Chester, or Wilmington...


37 posted on 06/12/2021 10:22:56 AM PDT by EEGator
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To: Kaslin

I turned my back on MLB the first time the Dodgers, a team I had been following for sixty years, took a knee during the National Anthem.


38 posted on 06/12/2021 11:48:56 AM PDT by Chuckster (Friends don't let friends eat farmed fish)
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To: Kaslin

Thank Stacy Abrams. She cut off her nose…..


39 posted on 06/12/2021 1:34:26 PM PDT by Nifster (I see puppy dogs in the clouds)
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To: EEGator

No they have jihadis


40 posted on 06/12/2021 1:37:47 PM PDT by Nifster (I see puppy dogs in the clouds)
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