Dave Roberts, MLB Ruined An Otherwise Lovely Baseball All-Star Game Weekend

If you ignore the asterisk, everything regarding the 2025 All-Star Weekend – including Tuesday’s game at Truist Park in Atlanta — was splendid for the city, the county, the state, the participants, the game of baseball and the lovers of fairytales.

I’ll tease to the asterisk.

I mean, really?

With those restrictive voting laws still alive and well in Georgia, there is no way Atlanta should have hosted baseball’s Mid-Summer Classic this year, not unless you ignore how Major League officials spent the last few days displaying a convenient dose of amnesia wrapped in hypocrisy.

But let’s stay warm and fuzzy for now since baseball just completed a mostly successful All-Star Weekend. It culminated with the packed house of 41,702 in the National League home of the Braves enjoying the first-ever “swing off’” for an All-Star Game when the score was tied 6-6 after nine innings.

Each side had three hitters during the grand finale, and each of those hitters had three outs.

The winner?

Whoever ended with the most home runs.

Kyle Schwarber won it for the Nationals with three of their four blasts to edge the Americans by one.

That was thrilling, but no more than what occurred for those watching after the bottom of the sixth inning. Courtesy of a high-tech tribute to Braves legend Hank Aaron and his record-breaking 715th home run, MLB and the team challenged the world record for producing goosebumps.

Baseball’s technical folks put three-dimensional images on the Truist Park field of the Los Angeles Dodgers players at their positions from that night of April 8, 1974 at old Atlanta Fulton County Stadium. Then, after a firework showed the path of Aaron’s shot from home plate to left-center field, digital markings gave Aaron’s exact route around the bases to become better than Babe Ruth in career homers.

There also were those other moments I mentioned.

For the city, the county and the state: Money.

According to Fox5Atlanta.com, the four days of All-Star festivities (HBCU Swingman Classic, Futures Game, Celebrity Softball Game, Major League Baseball Draft, Home Run Derby and All-Star Game) will have an economic impact of $50 millions locally and $100 million throughout the state.

For the participants: Joy.

“First, this is the best event of the summer,” said New York Mets shortstop Francisco Lindor in his fifth All-Star Game. “I’m in there asking questions. Even though I’m one of the oldest players in the National League clubhouse, I feel like I’m a kid at heart. I’m still trying to learn. You get to talk to players that you don’t normally talk to. You can put your guard down, and it’s not about beating those guys.”

It’s about handling the other league, and before Tuesday night, the NL All-Stars only had done that once since 2013.

Worse, before the NL All-Stars’ three-game winning streak through 2012, they were winless against the AL for 13 straight seasons.

This was different for the NL All-Stars (barely). They scored twice in the first inning, and they threatened to seal the deal in the sixth. They had a 6-0 lead after Pete Alonso’s three-run homer and a solo shot by Corbin Carroll, but the Americans pulled to within 6-4 after four runs in the seventh, and then it was 6-6 in the ninth to make the Fox Sports folks happy regarding TV ratings.

For the game of baseball: Redemption.

Those who run the sport discovered tradition isn’t that bad for a game hugged by fans for its (ahem) tradition. So, MLB officials ended six years of misery for all those with eyes by allowing players to wear their own uniforms this time instead of special All-Star jerseys, which basically were boring All-Star jerseys.

For the lovers of fairy tales: Cal and The Hammer.

You had Seattle Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh capturing Monday night’s Home Run Derby, with his father, Todd, throwing the pitches, and with his 15-year-old brother, Todd Jr., catching. Then you had that moving Aaron tribute, which ended with fireworks exploding and the ballpark’s big screen showing Aaron’s widow Billye standing in a suite and waving to the crowd.

We’re back to that asterisk, though.

Just four years ago, nearly everybody in the game – ranging from commissioner Rob Manfred to defending world championship manager Dave Roberts of the Los Angeles Dodgers – blasted this part of Dixie after Georgia’s state legislature passed a restrictive voting-rights law that critics said targeted Black communities.

Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred did the right thing by yanking the 2021 All-Star Game from Atlanta after he said it was “the best way to demonstrate our values as a sport.”

Before Manfred’s remark, Roberts, who was slated to manage the National League back then in Atlanta, said he might boycott the game.

“I will certainly consider it,” Roberts said during the spring of 2021. “I don’t know enough about it right now. But when you’re restricting, trying to restrict American votes, American citizens, that’s alarming to me to hear it. As we get to that point and we know more, I will make a better decision. But I do think that if it gets to that point, it will certainly be a decision I have to make personally.”

Hmmmmmm.

According to a study in October by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, those voting laws passed in 2021 by Georgia’s state legislature continues to have “a larger impact on Black voters than white voters.”

Still, Manfred announced during an owners’ meeting in 2023 that Atlanta would get its third All-Star Game in 2025, and he hasn’t uttered a public word about those same Georgia voting laws since he first blasted them.

As for Roberts, he was on stage Monday as part of an MLB press conference hosted by ESPN personality Pat McAfee. Even though they didn’t have a problem hearing other questions during the session, they both said they didn’t understand what a reporter was asking when she wished to know why Roberts wasn’t taking as firm of a stance against an All-Star Game in Atlanta as he did four years ago.

Same law, same situation, she said.

She repeated the question.

Roberts and McAfee said again they didn’t understand what she was asking, but after McAfee declared it was inappropriate, he suggested questions should be more baseball focused or something.

Nevertheless, Roberts decided to answer.

Sort of.

“I do feel that I’m excited to be here,” Roberts said. “It’s a great city. Baseball fans are excited to be here and celebrate these great athletes. I’m not a politician. I do feel that everyone has their right to voice thoughts, but right now I choose to focus on the players and the game.”

Uh huh.