Major League Baseball is hosting its All-Star Game in Denver this year because the league took a political stance against Georgia’s new election laws.
It’s only fair that we take one in return and boycott this exhibition game so MLB regrets its decision.
Normally I’m not a huge fan of the All-Star Game — especially now that it no longer determines home-field advantage in the World Series. I would prefer that Boston Red Sox players don’t have to participate since it’s an injury risk in a game that means nothing, and it puts more mileage on pitchers’ arms. However, it’s sometimes worth watching because it’s a chance to see some of the best players across the league, especially on some of the National League teams that the Red Sox won’t face this season.
If MLB didn’t take a political stance against the state of Georgia for trying to ensure election integrity, that point would stand. But MLB decided to play politics because it disapproved of a state’s reforms to voting.
Georgia’s bill made changes such as requiring proof of identity to obtain an absentee ballot. When there are documented cases of voter fraud through the mail, that’s a good provision — even if those instances are far less common than former President Donald Trump claims. It also prevents electioneering within 150 feet of a polling place.
The media spun that as denying people water, which is misleading because some campaigns give out candidate-branded water bottles at their events. In a down-ballot race where people haven’t heard of any candidates running, that seems like a good way to bribe voters. Meanwhile, the Georgia law still allows election workers to give people food and water in line.
It truly is pathetic that this is the law that the league decided to boycott an event over. It would never do this to a state for passing an extreme pro-abortion law even though every successful abortion ends a human life. Massachusetts passed the ROE Act last December despite bipartisan opposition. It included a provision that stripped the right to medical care to babies born during an attempted abortion.
It’s disturbing, and Major League Baseball won’t boycott the state over it. That’s good because many of us who find that bill reprehensible still want to see an All-Star Game at Fenway Park.
The same goes for the death penalty and physician-assisted suicide (or whatever pro-death advocates rebrand it as every few years). Physician-assisted suicide is legal in Colorado, where there is also no gestational limit on abortion. That culture of death is far worse than Georgia putting fraud-reducing restrictions on the voting process.
However, it’s not MLB’s job to police these issues. It shouldn’t abandon Colorado or Massachusetts over bad political policies in the same way that it shouldn’t have abandoned Georgia. MLB decided to take a stand, though, so we should return the favor and sit this game out.
Maybe if the ratings take a hit, MLB will steer clear of this virtue-signaling moving forward.
Tom Joyce (@TomJoyceSports) is a political reporter for the New Boston Post in Massachusetts. He is also a freelance writer who has been published in USA Today, the Boston Globe, Newsday, ESPN, the Detroit Free Press, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Federalist, and a number of other outlets.
