Don’t Mess With Texas
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott was to have thrown out the first pitch at yesterday’s Texas Rangers major league baseball home opener.
It was a no brainer for the team to have invited him. Thanks to him, restrictions tied to COVID were relaxed so the team could not only welcome fans for the first time to their new ballpark, the public opening of which had been delayed a year due to the pandemic, but a full-capacity crowd was expected.
And it was a no brainer for the governor to accept. He’s running for re-election next year, and the symbol of throwing out the first pitch to a new baseball season is traditional for politicians, especially to show the “reopening” of the state.
But yesterday morning, Gov. Abbott told the team to find someone else. He said that since major league baseball injected politics into the sport by removing the league’s all-star game from Atlanta in response to Georgia’s voting law revisions, he would not participate in any event held by MLB. He went further, saying the state would not seek to host the all-star game or any other MLB special events…like last year’s World Series, with all games on the Arlington, Texas neutral site.
He blamed baseball for using a “false narrative” about the law reforms, and noted “It is shameful that America’s pastime is being influenced by partisan politics.”
It would have been easy for the governor to support the home team, throw out the pitch, honor his obligation…but what a refreshing thing for him to instead push back against woke counter culture narrative and nonsense.
This is a pivotal time in society, politics and culture. Let’s hope many more people with the power to do so, follow the governor’s lead…because I’ll bet the support they receive will be far greater than those who started this disinformation effort.
