April 3, 2021

Republicans Rush to Cancel Baseball

Eugenio Suarez of the Cincinnati Reds hits a foul ball in a spring training game.Ross D. Franklin

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Major League Baseball announced on Friday that it would move two marquee scheduled events—July’s All Star Game and its player draft—from Atlanta in response to a new law, ushered in by the state’s Republican legislature and governor, that makes it harder for many Georgians to cast ballots. The bill comes just months after voters turned out in massive numbers and handed unprecedented victories to President Joe Biden and Sens. Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock—all Democrats.

In response to the relocations, elected Republicans quickly took the field to voice support for stripping Major League Baseball of a federal antitrust exemption that has been key to the league’s operations since it was won in a controversial 1922 Supreme Court case.

Rep. Jeff Duncan—a South Carolina Republican whose Twitter bio notes he is a “Lover of football”—was among the earliest to float the step, which was quickly endorsed in one way or another by several of his party’s most prominent figures, including Donald Trump Jr. and Sens. Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz.

No other US sport has such an exemption, and while it’s been repeatedly held up in the courts and sustained by subsequent Congressional action, its effects have long been debated. Some credit it with helping keep longstanding teams operating in small markets, while others have complained it gives owners unfair advantages.

But moving to take it away now, after nearly a century, is a clear act of retaliation against a corporate entity that dared to take a position contrary to the modern GOP. That’s foul ball.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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