Disney started a political fight with Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) and lost. Does Major League Baseball want to step into the on-deck circle?
Writing for the Washington Post, Kevin Blackistone is begging it to. The ESPN panelist runs through a bunch of tired talking points about racism and how the MLB’s support of Pride Month means it should fight to allow teachers to teach kindergartners that there are 72 genders or to transition them behind their parents' backs.
Blackistone's writing and his demands are indistinguishable from the liberal drivel you can find at any other liberal media outlet, including ESPN.
Kevin Blackistone is a racist anti-Semite who said America should boycott the Olympics because Israel was a participant. Now he's treating Florida the same way. https://t.co/WDaNr0JdAu
— Ben Domenech (@bdomenech) March 7, 2023
RON DESANTIS TOUTS NEW ACCOUNTABILITY FOR DISNEY IN FLORIDA: ‘A NEW SHERIFF IN TOWN’
According to Blackistone, MLB teams playing in the offseason Grapefruit League in Florida “could collectively, or through MLB’s front office, let their displeasure with DeSantis’s leadership, with its hints of the troubling days of yesteryear.” The teams should blackmail DeSantis with a “reminder” about how spring training “injected $687 million into the state over a little more than six weeks.” DeSantis is promoting Jim Crow, to hear Blackistone tell it. Why shouldn’t MLB pick a food fight with him?
The league did exactly that with Georgia, after all. When Georgia reformed its election laws to add more security while still expanding voting opportunities, Democrats and liberal media lied and whined that it was Jim Crow all over again — or “Jim Crow on steroids,” according to President Joe Biden. MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred and other league officials didn’t bother to read the bill. They caved, letting activists know that the league didn’t have a spine.
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Blackistone is hoping to whip up pressure again, this time trying to get Manfred to declare open war on the Republican Party. The league has refused to address its decision to move its All-Star Weekend out of Georgia in hopes that the political furor would fade. If it were to try and take a stand against DeSantis and Florida, that furor would hit fever pitch, and you can be sure DeSantis’s team wouldn’t let MLB slip into silence again.
Major League Baseball could simply ignore activists such as Blackistone. But then, the league also could have simply ignored Biden and the social media mob that wanted the league to punish Georgia. Instead, Manfred emboldened them to make even more outrageous demands, including picking a foolish fight with Florida just as Disney did. Disney struck out then, and Manfred will too if he decides to step up to the plate and continue these political games.