Former MLB Commissioner: Moving the All-Star Game Was a ‘Serious Mistake’
Former Major League Baseball Commissioner Fay Vincent on Tuesday said the decision to lower baseball into the swamp of divisive politics was a “serious mistake.” Vincent, who served as commissioner from 1989 to 1992…
Former Major League Baseball Commissioner Fay Vincent on Tuesday said the decision to lower baseball into the swamp of divisive politics was a “serious mistake.”
Vincent, who served as commissioner from 1989 to 1992, made his comments in an Op-Ed in The Wall Street Journal.
MLB Commissioner Robert Manfred acted to pull the All-Star Game out of Atlanta after Democrats howled their criticisms of an election integrity law passed by Georgia. Those criticisms were echoed by President Joe Biden, who said in an interview last week he would “strongly support” efforts to move the game in protest of the voting law, which he called “Jim Crow on steroids.”
The All-Star Game will now be played at Coors Field in Denver, which has sparked comparisons of Colorado’s voting laws with those of Georgia.
‘”Georgia has 17 days of in-person early voting including two optional Sundays, Colorado has 15,” Republican Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp said, according to Fox News. “So what I’m being told, they also have a photo ID requirement. So it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me.”
By moving the All-Star game, Vincent said, baseball must now pick one side over the other in the partisan debate over voting when it does not even belong in the middle of the duel.
“Mr. Manfred failed to spell out specific criticisms of Georgia’s voting law,” he wrote. “Now he’s put himself in the awkward position of having to defend Colorado’s voting laws.”
The former commissioner wondered how baseball can endorse some claims of racism and reject others.