Throughout the Peach State, people are breathing a huge sigh of relief. On Thursday, Major League Baseball (MLB) finally decreed that Georgia is no longer racist when the league awarded the 2025 All-Star Game to Atlanta.
"We are thrilled that Major League Baseball has awarded the Atlanta Braves the 2025 All-Star Game,” said Terry McGuirk, the Braves’ chairman. “Time and time again, Atlanta has proven to be a world-class destination for the most exciting entertainment and sporting events. I am excited that baseball fans will have the opportunity to experience Truist Park and The Battery Atlanta along with all this area has to offer. Over the coming months, we look forward to working alongside MLB to create memorable experiences that will showcase and support our community.”
The team celebrated the announcement on Twitter/X:
The Atlanta #Braves have been awarded the 2025 @MLB All-Star Game! pic.twitter.com/rZaqYOckwY
— Atlanta Braves (@Braves) November 16, 2023
The announcement came three years after MLB removed the 2021 game from the city over Georgia's voter integrity law, which Stacey Abrams tricked MLB and certain corporations into believing disenfranchised black voters.
I wrote more about this back in July:
Atlanta hasn’t hosted an All-Star Game since 2000, although you might remember that MLB initially selected Truist Park as the site for the 2021 game. Then, after Georgia passed its election integrity law, Stacey Abrams got involved and forced MLB to relocate the 2021 All-Star Game to Denver.
On March 31, 2021, Abrams wrote an op-ed in USA Today calling for boycotts of the Peach State:
The impassioned response to the racist, classist bill that is now the law of Georgia is to boycott in order to achieve change. Events hosted by major league baseball, world class soccer, college sports and dozens of Hollywood films hang in the balance. At the same time, activists urge Georgians to swear off of hometown products to express our outrage. Until we hear clear, unequivocal statements that show Georgia-based companies get what’s at stake, I can’t argue with an individual’s choice to opt for their competition.
USA Today later stealth-edited the piece to soften Abrams’ language about boycotts, but the damage had been done. MLB moved the Midsummer Classic to Denver despite the fact that Colorado’s voting laws had similar ID requirements and fewer early voting days than Georgia’s.
The decision to move the 2021 All-Star Game cost small businesses in metro Atlanta tens of millions of dollars, and many of those businesses are minority-owned.
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The Atlanta Braves and the state of Georgia got their revenge in multiple ways. The Braves made it to the 2021 World Series bringing three of the six games of the Fall Classic to Truist Park — and winning it all.
While Stacey Abrams and the MLB stole the All-Star Game from hardworking Georgians, the Braves earned their trip to the World Series this season and are bringing it home to Georgia.
— Brian Kemp (@BrianKempGA) October 24, 2021
Chop On, and Go @Braves!
Georgia proved that its voter integrity measures didn't suppress anyone's vote. Minority turnout increased even as the GOP swept nearly every 2022 statewide race by impressive margins, and a University of Georgia poll showed that literally zero black voters had issues while voting. The General Assembly strengthened voter protections in 2023.
Awarding another All-Star game is the closest that Georgia will get to an apology for MLB buying Abrams' lies and yanking the 2021 Midsummer Classic from Atlanta. I guess we'll take it.
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