Play Ball Except in Atlanta at the All Star Break

Photo from Talking Chop

As Az Blue Meanie noted in an earlier article today, it is Opening Day for America's Pastime.

It will be fun watching to see if the Diamondbacks exceed expectations and become one of this year's Cinderella Teams.

Arizona fans should take note that preseason predictions are just forecasts. Sometimes they happen and other times they do not.

I remember in 1979, the New York Yankees had signed Luis Tiant and Tommy John to their starting rotation and many pundits thought they were going to go to their fourth straight World Series.

After a lackluster start to the season and later the death of catcher Thurman Munson, they finished in fourth place behind the eventual American League Champion Baltimore Orioles.

I remember when the New York Mets acquired Brett Saberhagen and Bobby Bonilla for the 1992 season and the pundits said they were the team to beat.

That Mets team finished below .500

So there is hope for the Diamondbacks despite what the Dodgers and the Padres did in the off-season.

But I digress.

Historically, baseball has been a vehicle for social change and justice.

There was integration starting with Jackie Robinson and Larry Doby in 1947.

In fact, a case could be made that there would not be a Catcus League if progressive-minded Bill Veeck, annoyed with the Jim Crow attitudes in segregation enforced Florida, had not moved the Cleveland Indians along with Horace Stoneham's New York Giants to Arizona for Spring Training in 1947.

Then there was the labor strife from the 1960s through 1990 that saw the collective power of the unions and individuals like players Curt Flood, Andy Messersmith, and David McNally along with Union representatives Marvin Miller and Donald Fehr take baseball from a league where players were truly treated in most cases like indentured servants to one where they received salaries and benefits that gave them more than a living wage.

Please click here to access Ken Burns's great documentary series Baseball and here for HBO's When it was a Game to see how far baseball has advanced American Progress.

Now baseball owners and players face another opportunity to advance social justice in the United States.

The 2021 Baseball All-Star Game is scheduled to be played in Atlanta, Georgia this year.

The Georgia State Government just enacted several voter suppression measures including:

• Giving the state legislature to change election county boards if they do not like what is going on.
• Making it a crime to give people water or food if they are waiting a long time on line to vote.

Baseball players should take a stand and boycott this game if Georgia does not repeal these suppressing measures.

Baseball should find a new venue to play the All-Star Game and go to a state whose legislature is not actively considering bills that would make it harder to vote.

That leaves out states like Arizona, Florida,  Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Texas.

The Major League Baseball Players Association is considering a boycott of the game.

Historically, there is precedent. 

Arizona lost the opportunity to host a Superbowl in the 1990's because Martin Luther King Day was not passed as a paid holiday.

The National Basketball Association moved its All-Star Game from Charlotte in 2017  after the North Carolina State Government passed a measure that discriminated against the LGBTQ rights on restroom use.

It is time for baseball players and owners to rise to the occasion again and steer history forward by moving the All-Star Game out of Atlanta if the Georgia State Government does not undo the voting suppressing measures they have enacted.