ATLANTA (AP) — Atlanta was stripped of baseball’s All-Star Game over the summer, but it has the World Series now. And Republicans are gloating.
ATLANTA (AP) — Atlanta was stripped of baseball’s All-Star Game over the summer, but it has the World Series now. And Republicans are gloating. The moment the Braves clinched the National League pennant Saturday, Republicans began dunking on Major League Baseball and Democrats over July’s All-Star Game being yanked from Truist Park in protest over Georgia’s restrictive voting law. When the game was shifted to Denver, Republicans pilloried baseball and Democrats in a culture-war uprising that in part served to salve the Georgia GOP’s internal wounds. They claimed then that the loss of All-Star festivities would hurt low-wage workers and cost metro Atlanta’s economy, but economists say those claims were wildly inflated. Even some business owners who took part in Republican protests against the decision in April say they are now more focused on looking forward. Sandra Cook of Catered Southern Events does catering for several hotels in the area near Truist Park in suburban Cobb County. Cook, who appeared with Republican House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy at an event denouncing the game’s departure, said restaurants all over the region “had lost so much” as COVID-19 cases surged earlier this year. Cook said she’s happy for businesses now getting a boost from baseball. “Maybe we’ll make it back up with the World Series,” she said. Many Georgia GOP leaders, though, stepped right back into the batter’s box to continue political baseball. “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,” Republican Gov. Brian Kemp tweeted moments after the Braves clinched the National League. Republican Attorney General Chris Carr filmed a video in front of Truist Park calling it “poetic justice” that the World Series would be played in Atlanta after the All-Star Game was “stolen from us.
