Amid glow open day, cloud looms over MLB All-Star Game

ATLANTA (AP) — Amid the glow of baseball's opening day, there is a cloud looming over the All-Star Game still more than three months away.

Georgia’s new voting law — which critics say unfairly limits access to the ballot box, especially for people of color — has prompted calls from as high as the White House to consider moving the midsummer classic out of Atlanta.

The game is set for July 13 at Truist Park, the Braves’ 41,000-seat stadium in suburban Cobb County. It would be the third time Atlanta serves as host, having previously held the event in 1972 and 2000.

One of baseball’s biggest stars, Braves first baseman and reigning National League MVP Freddie Freeman, weighed in on the divisive issue Thursday, just a few hours before Atlanta opened the season in Philadelphia.

Freeman suggested that the game should remain at Truist Park, but be used as a platform to promote voting rights.

“Why not?” he said. “What’s happened in the last couple of months has already gone through" the state Legislature and been signed into law last week by Gov. Brian Kemp.

“Why not use what we already have here as a platform in the city and the state it's been passed through,” Freeman added. "I think it would be better to keep it (in Atlanta) and use it as a platform.”

Others have taken a different tack.

Everyone from President Biden to Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred to the head of baseball’s powerful players union, Tony Clark, saying that moving the game to another city should be on the table.

Biden told ESPN he would “strongly support” pulling the game out of Atlanta because of a law he described as “Jim Crow on steroids.”

Two of Atlanta's sports team owners also seemed to express their opposition to the law in statements that bemoaned...

source https://www.chron.com/news/article/Amid-glow-open-day-cloud-looms-over-MLB-All-Star-16070640.php