There’ll be no joy in Cobb County this summer during baseball’s storied All-Star Game.

In an uncharacteristic pitch for social consciousness, Major League Baseball has removed this year’s midseason classic from suburban Atlanta.

The move came in protest to a raft of new voting rules in Georgia that have been rightly criticized as a veiled attempt to suppress black votes.

“Major League Baseball fundamentally supports voting rights for all Americans and opposes restrictions to the ballot box,” MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred said.

Baseball’s moral retreat from Georgia also recalls the corporate response to North Carolina’s notorious “bathroom bill,” HB 2, which restricted public restroom access for transgender persons and rolled back local protections for the rights of LGBTQ persons.

The repercussions were wide-ranging. North Carolina lost new jobs, concerts, conventions and NCAA Tournament games as result of the ill-conceived and unnecessary law. Also like Georgia, it lost an all-star game — in the case of HB 2, the 2017 NBA All-Star Game that was supposed to be played in Charlotte.

In dollars and cents, the economic impact of HB 2 translated to an estimated $400 million in lost investments and jobs.

If anything, HB 2 may have advanced the case of LGBTQ rights by the attention it created. What happened here also served as a cautionary tale for other states that were considering similar legislation.

Baseball’s decision is especially significant because it is not known for its social activism. Now it may have opened the door for others to follow suit.

Not surprisingly, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp feigned righteous indignation, framing Georgia as the victim and dusting off some familiar rhetoric and GOP talking points in the process.

“Yesterday, Major League Baseball caved to fear and lies from liberal activists,” Kemp said Saturday. “In the middle of a pandemic, Major League Baseball put the wishes of Stacey Abrams and Joe Biden ahead of the economic well-being of hard-working Georgians who were counting on the All-Star Game for a paycheck.”

The Atlanta Braves huffed: “This was neither our decision, nor our recommendation, and we are saddened that fans will not be able to see this event in our city.”

It is, in fact, no coincidence that the voting restrictions in Georgia and a barrage of pending legislation in other battleground states follow the GOP’s losses in key battleground states in 2020. Here’s the circular illogic involved: Republicans alleged without credible evidence that the 2020 election was fraudulent, therefore they now feel compelled to restore citizen “trust” in the process.

Republicans claim that the law makes voting more accessible. But the 98-page law tightened identification requirements, limited drop boxes, shortened the early voting window for runoff elections and gave lawmakers the power to take over local elections. It also makes it a misdemeanor for people to offer food and water to voters waiting in line.

Many of the provisions would have the most impact on more urban areas that tend to vote Democratic. Take for instance, the dropbox provision. For the 2020 election, there were 94 drop boxes in the four counties that comprise the metropolitan Atlanta areas. The new law imposes a limit of no more than 23 drop boxes.

As for Major League Baseball’s decision, it is neither unusual nor unprecedented.

There were impromptu refusals to play NBA, NHL and professional tennis matches last year following the death of George Floyd; there was the NFL’s decision in 1991 to move the 1993 Super Bowl from Phoenix following that state’s refusal to observe the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday; and there was President Jimmy Carter’s boycott of the Moscow Olympics in 1980 over the Soviets’ refusal to withdraw from Afghanistan.

So politics and sports have been acquainted for a long while.

Even so, baseball’s decision, like those before it, has been met with mixed reviews. It will cost Atlanta businesses and workers, many of whom are the same people who will be affected by the new Georgia voting law.

Some irate fans have said they will boycott baseball … in a protest of boycotts.

But there’s always collateral damage in scenarios like this. The question is whether the long-term gain of fair access to the vote is worth the presumably short-term economic pain. And the answer is yes.

Play ball … somewhere else.

— Greensboro News & Record