Ex-Major League Baseball Commissioner Fay Vincent slammed the MLB’s decision to move the All Star Game in a Wall Street Journal op-ed published Monday.
The Georgia House recently passed a voter integrity law deemed racist by corporate executives, journalists and politicians, including President Joe Biden, and as a result, MLB moved the All Star Game from Atlanta to Denver. Vincent’s op-ed criticized the decision and noted the MLB’s naked hypocrisy with regard to China’s human rights abuses.
“What is the basis for acting so forcefully against Georgia? If Georgia is racist, how can baseball talk of doing business with China?” Vincent wrote.
Vincent also argued that Commissioner Robert Manfred failed to both “protest the substance of the law” before punishing Georgia and take any meaningful action. “To move the site of the All-Star Game is one thing; to ignore union and ownership powers is quite another,” he wrote. (RELATED: ‘A Dream Opportunity For The Republican Party’: Joe Scarborough Blasts MLB’s ‘Ridiculous’ Decision To Move All-Star Game)
Wow— former MLB commissioner Fay Vincent calls out Manfred/@MLB over their decision to move the All Star Game out of Georgia:
“The commissioner politicized baseball over a law he likely hadn’t examined.” https://t.co/ocYqP4yit7
— Matt Whitlock (@mattdizwhitlock) April 7, 2021
Changing the location of the game won’t impact voting laws, but will hurt vendors and stadium workers, Vincent continued, writing, “The midsummer All-Star Game is an exhibition that benefits only the city where it’s played…The players will get paid no matter where the game takes place. MLB will get the same television revenue. The only people hurt by Mr. Manfred’s decision will be Atlanta’s stadium workers and local vendors.”
Manfred neglected to discuss any specific issues with Georgia’s voting law and will now have to defend voting laws in Colorado, Vince wrote, highlighting the fact that Colorado’s voting laws are not very different from Georgia’s.
The MLB has drawn widespread rebukes for its decision to move the All Star game. The league also inadvertently moved it from a mostly black city to a predominantly white city, which will likely cost black-owned businesses, as previously reported.