Major League Baseball suspends Atlanta as host of All-Star Game after voting law is signed in Georgia

TheMajor League Baseball (MLB) They announced this Friday that they will not celebrate the nextGame of stars inAtlanta, as planned, after the Congress of the southern state ofGeorgia approve new restrictions onvoting laws which, it is estimated, would particularly limit suffrage among African Americans.

After weighing his decision in dialogue with the players' union, active baseball players and former stars of both leagues, as well as the teams that make up the organization, the commissionerRob Manfred stated in a statement that “the best way to demonstrate our values as a sport is to relocate theAll Star Game and theDraft fromMLB”.

This is not only a direct warning, by a large company, to Republicans in Georgia and other states who seek to reproduce the conditions for the historic “voter suppression” after the result of the last elections, as they have highlighted various media outlets in the United States.

It is also an important step forward, socially and politically speaking, in the particular trajectory of an organization considered conservative or traditionalist in many aspects, whose standards usually disapprove of too many (spontaneous) gestures of its athletes, while militarism is worshiped on the grounds. and religious nationalism (God Bless America heard every seventh inning in most stadiums).

MLB now stars in the latest chapter in the recent emergence of major professional sports as leading political actors in the United States, beyond, of course, the individual positions of historical figures, such as Mohammed Ali or John Carlos, and contemporary figures such as Colin Kaepernick in American football — the quarterback would lose his job in the NFL after kneeling in 2016 during the anthem as a protest against racism — orLebron James in NBA basketball.

Last summer, the NBA carried out a media campaign to support mass protests against systemic racism (“Black Lives Matter", was read on the court on the fields of the Disney complex in Orlando, which hosted the "bubble" that allowed the season to end in the middle of thecoronavirus).

At the request of the players' union and thanks to the voice of its great stars, a commitment was reached that included commissioner Adam Silver and the team owners to, precisely, combat the suppression of the vote in vulnerable communities and, above all, in the context of the pandemic.

In that case, it was not only a huge influence campaign through television and social networks, but also concrete initiatives (including donations and fundraising and the use of playing fields as electoral headquarters) with the objective to support the alternative of voting by mail and to offer security to in-person voting.

As highlighted this FridayThe New York Times (NYT), the provision announced by MLB is due, above all, to the lobbying exercised by civil rights groups and, in particular, by the MLB Players Association (although even the presidentJoe Biden has raised his voice about it).

It can be said that Manfred has thrown the ball into the court of other large corporations — Delta and Coca Cola, based in that state, have declined to take a position so far, he said.NOW— which could also penalize business in Georgia, one of the most important battlefields duringlast November's elections.

Georgia (16 electoral votes) was one of the last scenarios to be decided in favor of Biden, who even had to wait for a manual recount and an audit to certify his victory there, after the escalation of challenges and legal obstacles put in place by the former presidentDonald Trump.

The proven fact that, thanks to absentee votes coming from large urban areas of Atlanta, Georgia pivoted compared to 2016 and contributed decisively to the final result of the presidential elections, only worsened last January.

Then the two seats corresponding to Georgia in the Washington Senate ended up, after a close race that included a second round, in the hands ofDemocrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, which took majority control of that chamber away from the Republicans.

So the conservatives in the state Congress were not going to sit idly by.

The new law, signed last week by Georgia Governor Brian Kemp, limits the use of mailboxes (“drop boxes), adds new identification requirements for “absentee voting,” gives greater power over elections to the local legislature, and makes it a misdemeanor to offer food and water to voters while they are in line to exercise their right to vote. .

In any case, the step taken by MLB in taking the 2021 All Star Game of theSun Trust Park, stadium of theAtlanta Braves, once again elevates the discussion on electoral rights to a national scale other than the legislative huddles and unequal spheres of influence of professional politicians, big lobbyists, and the various civil rights associations.

Put the matter back in theprime time of professional sports, just 24 hours after the Opening Day of baseball in the United States.

The decision announced by Manfred perhaps sounds like a bell for millions of viewers, but above all for his great and influential partners commercial and, hopefully, for legislators, not only in Georgia, but in Texas or Florida, where quite similar bills are also advancing.

At least that's what it sounds like in the ears of African-American stars and activists likeLebron James, who recently announced himself as one of the minority owners ofBoston Red Sox. “Proud to call myself part of the #MLB family today,” he wrote on Twitter, tagging the initiative “More Than a Vote” and with thehashtag #BlackLives Matter.

At the same time, another basketball myth,Magic Johnson, stated: “I want to applaud and extend a thank you to MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred for moving the All Star Game out of Georgia following the Governor's signing of a new and restrictive voting law. That's being a leader and taking a strong stance!”