CLEVELAND, Ohio (92.3 The Fan) – To say that Friday’s decision by Major League Baseball to move the All-Star Game out of Atlanta this summer was polarizing is an understatement.
Commissioner Rob Manfred made the decision to move this year’s mid-summer classic, which was planned to be a tribute to Hank Aaron, in the wake of recent voting legislation passed by the state assembly and signed by Georgia’s governor.
“To pay tribute to Mr. Aaron, I think this is a wonderful way to start doing that,” Indians manager Terry Francona said Saturday. “You who have talked to me know that my dad played with Hank and my dad thought he walked on water.
“For a guy that certainly led by example in a time that it wasn’t easy to do that, and in an area that it wasn’t that easy to do that, this is kind of a fitting tribute.”
Manfred and MLB has been praised for the move by opponents of the law, who view it as a return to Jim Crow era politics – intentionally limiting the ability to vote for minorities.
Proponents of the new state voting requirements believe they ensure security and integrity at the ballot box and decry baseball engaging in ‘cancel culture’ and being ‘woke.’
“It’s difficult to put into words,” Francona said. “Guys like me, lay people when you’re talking about politics, we’ve tried to rely on our leaders for the past handful of years. It can get rather confusing, if not sometimes downright dishonest. So it makes it difficult. But if there are people that are trying to marginalize some peoples voting, I support our players in our industry – whoever is making that decision to [move the game], I fully support that because that can’t be. That can’t be the case.
“And you try to listen. But when you listen, there’s so much that is confusing and probably not altogether honest at times and that is really confusing.”
