Saturday, November 06, 2021

No Joy in Mudville

Will and Anna attended the Braves World Championship parade on Friday, something they and the entire city will remember for decades. The parade rightfully started out from the site of Hank Aaron’s 715th home run. The busses, firetrucks, and all wound its way through downtown Atlanta and up Peachtree to Colony Square, then up 75 to Northside Drive and past Cumberland Mall to The Battery and Truist Park.

Will, Charles, Joel, and Addie rode bikes to the parade, then backtracked and attended the celebration inside the ballpark.


But while the city came together in unity to celebrate the championship, some still just had to stir the pot. Terrence Moore is at it again. He writes for CNN.com that the World Champion Braves are not without controversy. Moore, who was born with a bee in his bonnet, lists the following transgressions…

1. Former president Donald Trump appeared at Truist Park for Game Four. What was wrong with that?

2. Moore says “the Braves organization joined Georgia Republican governor Brian Kemp earlier this season in blasting MLB for yanking the All Star Game out of Atlanta.” I don’t recall the Braves organization blasting MLB.

3. Moore went on: “”Commissioner Rob Manfred did so after Georgia’s Republican-led state legislature passed a draconian voting law, whose restrictions were an attack against the state’s minority citizens.” This is not true. The laws were enacted to restrict voter fraud, and nothing else. The laws do not restrict minority voters, and make it much easier for minorities to vote than similar laws in predominantly democratic states, like Delaware.

4. The Braves invited Travis Tritt to sing the national anthem…an anti-vaxer and prince of right wing politics. Wrong again, Terrance. Tritt is not an anti-vaxer. He is anti-vaccine mandates. And it’s not a crime for US citizens to have whatever political leaning they wish, even if it’s Marxist or Socialist.

5. "Braves officials…encouraged (the chopping) during games with a digital image – on all of the ballpark’s video boards – of a tomahawk going up and down.” Shameless. What of all the black fans I see at Truist Park and The Battery – chopping away? Are they racist as well?

https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/03/opinions/atlanta-braves-world-series-miracle-embarrassment-moore/index.html__;!!AE29DT8V!Gd9YShImVgZI5NvVxtqCOXF6nKp7RnERIxffzR2ZEEH7HOduCpMhBcXZpe2WDeG1epA$

Another article creating more racial division from CNN.com. Evidently playing country music at Truist Park drives away black fans, and that’s a bad thing. But it’s wrong to say the music played at Hawks and Falcons games (Atlanta’s black teams, according to the author) drives away white fans.

The author (who has lived in Atlanta 30 years) says Truist Park is in a white suburb. Guess he’s never been across the street to Cumberland Mall or out on Cobb Parkway. I live in “predominantly white East Cobb County” and have a black next door neighbor. In fact East Cobb and Kennesaw (and Roswell and Alpharetta) are indeed melting pots just like the rest of metro Atlanta, with varying nationalities and languages and businesses on every street. But to say so doesn’t fit this narrative.

Is it the Braves fault that MLB is only 7% black? Instead of offering solutions, these articles seek only to further divide, dragging out examples from several years ago, highlighting the few bad things instead of the numerous good deeds the Braves have brought to Atlanta’s black community for years and years, not just recently – but quickly brushed off by the author. In fact the bullet points include establishing Little League programs in African American communities, and hosting an annual showcase tournament for African American high school baseball players during Hank Aaron Weekend. Is MLB or any other team doing more than the Braves? 

I could waste more time pointing out more inaccuracies (and outright lies) but it’s not worth the effort. I wish so many weren’t so deceived. 

https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/31/us/atlanta-braves-history-racism-blake/index.html__;!!AE29DT8V!Arl0INpnzhiz17GFA2iAsenBJRCiSbOfmDLdq61PxDBRl15pc_K6jrJciCooTXXgtOc$

Max was seen in the company of that woman again, breaking even more hearts on Braves Twitter.

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