While the Atlanta Braves were playing their 2021 season opener Thursday afternoon, Cobb Commission Chairwoman Lisa Cupid pushed back against calls from President Joe Biden to move the All-Star Game away from Truist Park.
The president said he “strongly supports” finding a new venue for the mid-July event because of the Georgia legislature’s recent changes to elections laws that have been sharply criticized by Democrats as voter suppression measures.
Cupid, the first black head of Cobb County government and its first Democratic chair in more than 35 years, has been among them. But she issued a statement that Biden’s comments send “an unfortunate message to those residents and businesses here who have supported him.”
Cupid met on Thursday with Tony Clark, head of the Major League Baseball Players Association, who last week suggested moving the game.
In an interview with ESPN Wednesday, Biden said that “I think today’s professional athletes are acting incredibly responsibly. I would strongly support them doing that. People look to them. They’re leaders.”
In previous comments, Biden decried the new elections law, signed quickly after passage in a Republican-controlled legislature last week by GOP Gov. Brian Kemp, as “Jim Crow on steroids.”
Kemp, who is up for re-election in 2022, lashed out at Biden, saying calls to move the All-Star Game are “ridiculous.”
In a statement issued by Cobb spokesman Ross Cavitt, Cupid said that “I would be open to a discussion with the President and others about alternative actions that would channel our frustration into an opportunity to use this event as a chance to openly discuss this legislation, voter participation, and inclusion and then find an applicable response.”
The statement didn’t specify what any alternate actions might be.
Cupid said last week that losing the All-Star Game could hurt Cobb’s economic recovery from business closures related to the COVID-19 pandemic (see video below).
Leaders of major Atlanta-based corporations, including Delta Air Lines and Coca-Cola, have spoken out in recent days against the new elections law.
Last year’s shortened baseball season due to COVID-19 included no fans allowed in stadiums.
It was the fourth season at the Cobb County ballpark for the Braves, who reached the National League Championship Series and are among the contenders for the World Series this year.
The Braves have set a goal of allowing for full capacity—more than 40,000—by the time the All-Star Game rolls around. That event includes a homerun derby on Monday and the game between American League and National League all-stars on Tuesday.
The Braves will play their first homestand of the 2021 season next week with a 33 percent capacity, and said on Thursday that they will allow up to 50 percent capacity at Truist Park for the second homestand.
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