For the first time since 2000, the Atlanta Braves were set to host an All-Star Game.
Of course, the last time around the Braves were showing off their then new stadium, Turner Field, which opened in 1997.
2021 was to serve as the world’s introduction to Truist Park, which opened as SunTrust Park in 2017 and sits in Cobb County, not Fulton County, where so many division titles were won during the 1990s and early 2000s.
I had planned my own family trip over to Atlanta that week. I wasn’t optimistic about getting tickets to the game, but the new Battery development outside the stadium would be entertainment enough for us.
But it wasn’t meant to be.
The Braves’ chance to host the mid-summer classic fell victim to a political battle that didn’t have to be waged, or at least not in 2021.
Major League Baseball announced late last week its decision to move the All-Star Game out of Atlanta, along with the 2021 MLB Draft.
All signs point to the game being played at Coors Field in July.
One of the biggest problems in politics these days is the total lack of self-awareness in both major political parties.
Both the Republican and Democratic parties are out of touch. They both go to extremes and do not know when to say when, even when it hurts the very base they claim to be protecting.
The destruction of all things around them are inconsequential when it comes to victory for the parties’ leaders.
The MLB debacle is a classic example.
If the Georgia GOP had its finger on the pulse of America, it should have been informed enough to delay its attempts at “election reform” at least another year.
The state was set to host two huge sporting events this summer.
Georgia lawmakers didn’t have to look too far into the past to find an example of what happens when politics and athletics meet.
Less than 12 months ago, the GOP-led Mississippi Legislature did something no one thought was possible. It retired the old stars and bars state flag and eventually replaced the banner this past fall.
There were a number of outspoken Republicans who were already in favor of changing the flag in Jackson, but the impetus behind last summer’s about-face for the party was the threat by national athletics organizations like the NCAA to prohibit any Mississippi college from hosting postseason tournaments.
Missing out on sporting events like postseason baseball could cost towns like Oxford, Starkville, Hattiesburg and even Cleveland huge sums in sales tax revenue, along with costing the colleges money too.
Money talks. And the Mississippi GOP listened.
Perhaps their counterparts in Georgia should have phoned over and asked some of them for advice before pursuing legislation in response to the 2020 election so soon.
I’ll be honest.
I don’t agree with MLB’s decision. In its attempts to flex its economic muscle, the league will end up hurting many of the same people it claims to be helping by moving the game to Colorado.
The economic impact on small businesses surrounding the Braves stadium could lead to layoffs in a retail-rich area that is already struggling to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. It certainly won’t lead to job creation in Cobb County this summer.
Activists should at least weigh this before punishing organizations like the Braves, who were as powerless as Delta Airlines in the passing and signing of this law.
With the presidential race decided for four more years and one of Georgia’s two senate seats claimed by Democrats for the next six, this law serves little practical purpose in 2021. It only serves to further hurt the people of Georgia economically.
Just as Democrats should be more thoughtful in their approach to politics, Republicans should have been more cognizant of their timing, and they should have learned from Mississippi in 2020 that the threat of losing the lucrative payout from sporting events has become an effective weapon in politics.
And it works.
