All-Star Game moving to Kansas City unlikely, but MLB has chance to make huge statement
First, alas, chances are the prospect of the Major League Baseball’s 2021 All-Star Game and MLB Draft being moved to Kansas City after being abruptly pulled out of Atlanta is more a fantasy than a likelihood.
After all, Republican-controlled Missouri has demonstrated its own inclinations to restrict voting rights, the very basis of MLB’s decision to withdraw the events from the state of Georgia.
And while MLB has not yet publicly outlined its criteria for moving the game and did not immediately reply to a request for clarification from The Star on Monday, on Monday night ESPN’s Buster Olney reported that Coors Field in Colorado was “expected” to be the site. There also had been emerging public sentiment for it to be moved to Milwaukee — which hasn’t hosted the Midsummer Classic since 2002 and where a game intended to celebrate the career of the late Henry Aaron would be a fitting touch, since he began and ended his major league career there.
Then there’s the matter of being no contact as of Monday afternoon from MLB to those who would be instrumental in such an effort here, from the NLBM to the Kansas City Sports Commission — where president Kathy Nelson says she’d be thrilled by the opportunity but has nothing to go on yet.
All of which in itself leads to the question of whether MLB would really make this announcement on short notice without having an alternative in place for a multi-million event with numerous logistical challenges.
So the very notion of it being at Kauffman Stadium is a longshot.
But a longshot with a fascinating case and a groundswell of its own, especially if it could be compartmentalized into the finest element of the cause … one baptized in such odds.
“Everything about the Negro Leagues was a longshot!” Negro Leagues Baseball Museum president Bob Kendrick said earlier Monday.
So Kendrick is keeping his fingers crossed and allowing himself to contemplate fast-tracking a meaningful celebration plan as he thinks about how appropriate a time this could make for the NLBM to be the cornerstone of a Kansas City portfolio.
Imagine, Kendrick said, having “the story of the Negro Leagues be front and center in the minds of so many as we try to bridge that racial divide in our country.”
Count the ways this would be a compelling statement, but three in particular resonate and speak to why this will be a missed opportunity for MLB to make a profound statement if indeed it goes another way.
MLB and the Major League Baseball Players Association were deeply engaged in the cause a year ago when the museum launched the 100th anniversary celebration of the founding of the Negro National League at the Paseo YMCA. Commissioner Rob Manfred was in attendance at the news conference when it was announced MLB and the MLBPA made a joint $1 million donation on the occasion of the centennial.
But the celebration was disrupted by the pandemic even if the ever-adaptable Kendrick and his staff deftly adjusted with other initiatives and transitioned to Negro Leagues 101 this year … and wouldn’t this make for a fine way to help make up the difference in exposure and fundraising?
Such developments as the announcement in December that MLB would classify Negro Leagues statistics from 1920 to 1948 as “major league” demonstrated MLB’s increasing commitment to the NLBM.
That at least suggests open-mindedness to the example it could make with a return to Kansas City for the All-Star Game, where the NLBM was “the star” of the week in 2012, as Kendrick put it and many others might similarly recall.
Then there’s the matter of the most appropriate place to honor Aaron outside of Atlanta. Milwaukee is a compelling site, to be sure.
But Aaron, after all, got his start in the Negro Leagues with the Indianapolis Clowns.
“You don’t get the Henry Aaron (story) had it not been for the Negro Leagues … Henry Aaron’s roots are entrenched in the Negro Leagues,” Kendrick said. “And it’s that opportunity for us to trumpet that message. And in doing so, I do think it casts a bright light on those who came before Mr. Aaron who didn’t get that opportunity.”
And maybe that takes us most to the heart of the matter:
Even if there might be some potentially contradictory elements to moving the game out of Atlanta for the reasons it did and then put it in Missouri, well, might not basing it on revolving around the Negro Leagues make for an over-arching repudiation of that factor?
Especially if you consider the cause of the reinvigorated social justice movement in the last year, a cause that has helped amplify and clarify the museum’s broader role and responsibility.
“Very poetic,” Kendrick called the connection of it all.
“The civil unrest in many respects was an awakening for a lot of people, and that’s what we talk about,” he said “How beautiful is it that it’s the winning spirit of the Negro Leagues that is serving … to help bridge the racial divide in our country? There is something very poetic about that. Yeah. There really is.
“And would the game (here) help people understand that even more? Yeah. I think so. I think so. And I’ll continue to kind of do everything we have to do to help people understand again that this is a social justice museum, a civil rights museum. Just seen through the lens of baseball.”
While the view through the lens of MLB remains to be understood, national media forces such as Olney and Jack Harris of the Los Angeles Times certainly have stoked some grassroots interest by advocating for the game to be in Kansas City for just that reason. And Kansas City mayor Quinton Lucas tried to make an argument of his own on Friday when he wrote on Twitter that “Kansas City respects voting rights and would welcome the return of the @MLB All-Star Game.”
The last time here proved a crucial time for the museum, which had just welcomed Kendrick back the year before after it had gone astray. Sandwiched between the Buck O’Neil 100th anniversary celebration in 2011 and the screening of “42” here in 2013, the NLBM programs and festivities around the All-Star Game in 2012 were key to its resurgence.
Wherever the game is held this year, Kendrick reminded, the NLBM will be an essential element of it with various presentations and programs led by Kendrick.
And to be sure, he’s not being presumptuous, having not heard from MLB or even had conversations with the likes of the Royals (Vice-president of communications/broadcasting Mike Swanson told The Star on Saturday that “if chosen, we will do everything we can to be ready.”)
Just the same, he views this somewhat the same way he thinks of the idea of O’Neil one day entering the Baseball Hall of Fame: He’d be remiss if he didn’t start thinking about what that celebration could entail.
In the meantime, he’s conscious of the timetable. In 2012, the Royals had two years to prepare. Three months or so makes for an entirely different run-up.
“You can’t just kind of pull a rabbit out of the hat,” he said, “and make it work.”
Then again … wouldn’t be the first time the Negro Leagues have made the most of a longshot. If they’d only get a chance at it.
“That would be a great problem to have,” he said, laughing. “I’d welcome that problem.”
This story was originally published April 5, 2021 at 8:41 PM.