At the Ballpark: Race, Community and MLB
Race, racism and sports have been at the top of the news cycle for several weeks, thanks to Donald Sterling. But if you look deep enough, they’re in the news cycle every day.
The undercurrent bubbled to the surface among baseball writers this week, when San Francisco Giants beat writer Andrew Baggarly of Comcast SportsNet Bay Area penned a column lamenting the Atlanta Braves’ decision to leave 20-year-old Turner Field in downtown Atlanta at the end of the 2016 season for a shiny new ballpark to built at considerable taxpayer expense in Cobb County, a suburb just north of the city limits. Baggarly didn’t pull punches.
If the grading and construction and everything else goes to schedule, the Braves will make their white-flight move – and yes, that’s precisely what it is — in 2017.
This is outrageous. I don’t live within 2,000 miles of Atlanta and I am outraged.
….
Why are the Braves moving? Braves president John Schuerholz, in a taped statement that sounded thoroughly vetted and polished, cited difficulty with fan access at Turner Field along with lease that is expiring in three years and explained how millions in upgrades wouldn’t have come close to “improving the fan experience.”
“We wanted to find a location that is great for our fans, makes getting to and from the stadium much easier, and provides a first rate experience in and around our stadium,” he said.
You Aren't a FanGraphs MemberIt looks like you aren't yet a FanGraphs Member (or aren't logged in). We aren't mad, just disappointed. We get it. You want to read this article. But before we let you get back to it, we'd like to point out a few of the good reasons why you should become a Member. 1. Ad Free viewing! We won't bug you with this ad, or any other. 2. Unlimited articles! Non-Members only get to read 10 free articles a month. Members never get cut off. 3. Dark mode and Classic mode! 4. Custom player page dashboards! Choose the player cards you want, in the order you want them. 5. One-click data exports! Export our projections and leaderboards for your personal projects. 6. Remove the photos on the home page! (Honestly, this doesn't sound so great to us, but some people wanted it, and we like to give our Members what they want.) 7. Even more Steamer projections! We have handedness, percentile, and context neutral projections available for Members only. 8. Get FanGraphs Walk-Off, a customized year end review! Find out exactly how you used FanGraphs this year, and how that compares to other Members. Don't be a victim of FOMO. 9. A weekly mailbag column, exclusively for Members. 10. Help support FanGraphs and our entire staff! Our Members provide us with critical resources to improve the site and deliver new features! We hope you'll consider a Membership today, for yourself or as a gift! And we realize this has been an awfully long sales pitch, so we've also removed all the other ads in this article. We didn't want to overdo it. In case you didn't read all that, here's the short version. Membership includes:✓Ad-free browsing✓Unlimited FanGraphs & RotoGraphs articles✓Historical & platoon projections✓Leaderboard & player-page stat heatmaps✓One-click data exports✓Customizable player-page dashboards✓Dark & Classic site modes✓Weekly Members-only mailbag✓FanGraphs Walk-Off, your year in review✓Optional homepage photo removal✓Gift articles to non-membersI’ll leave you to wonder which fans they care about.
….
The Braves’ new ballpark might make financial sense. It might be too sweetheart to turn down. But every baseball ownership group should see itself as stewards for the franchise and the community, both those who are economically important and those who are less so. And that’s what makes this wasteful flight to Cobb County such a disappointment. It just feels wrong.
Strong words from an outsider, albeit one with some family ties to Georgia, as Baggarly explains, but not an unreasonable take. The Braves are the only MLB franchise in the Old South, and with a broadcast area that covers all of Georgia, South Carolina, Mississippi, most of Alabama and part of North Carolina and Tennessee as you can see on this map.
The Braves say they recognize the importance of Atlanta to the Civil Rights Movement and of baseball in advancing the cause of racial equality. That’s why the team now holds it’s own Heritage Weekend — separate from the MLB’s annual Civil Rights Game — which includes seminars and clinics for local youth featuring Braves players. The team celebrated Heritage Weekend last weekend with the Giants in town, and the teams wore throwback uniforms honoring the teams from the Negro Leagues.
Still, while players wore the uniforms, the Braves public address system pumped in the music for the Tomahawk Chop, the faux “war chant” Braves fans make with a chopping arm motion when the team has done or is about to do something good on the field. And as much as the Braves celebrate their connection to the Civil Rights Movement, they embrace the Tomahawk Chop.
There’s not a hint of irony in that video, not even a recognition that the Tomahawk Chop is seen and felt as racially insensitive by many Native Americans, as a caricatured imitation of a culturally and ethnically important part of their history. Look closely at the video, and you’ll see white fans dressed in the kind of Native American “costumes” that used to be popular on Halloween. Today, in 2014, we’re much more sensitive to the pain such “war paint” and “war chants” cause our fellow citizens — and yet, they persist. We only have to look as far as Cleveland on Opening Day of the Indians season, when this photo made the rounds on Twitter:
Here’s one of those times when the phrase “Only in Cleveland” is actually an understatement. #Cleveland #Indians pic.twitter.com/rFlzrqNz4q
— Cleveland Frowns (@ClevelandFrowns) April 4, 2014
Several readers have probably skipped to the comments by now to lambaste me for calling the Braves a racist organization. I do not believe Braves executives or the owner — the media conglomerate Liberty Media — have acted with intent to harm African-Americans or to exclude them from the Braves community. But there’s a question of whether the Braves’ move to Cobb County will have that effect, unintended or otherwise.
Craig Calcaterra of NBC’s HardballTalk had his take on Andrew Baggarly’s column and, while sympathetic to Baggarly’s view, concluded that the Braves were like any other sports franchise in following the money trail.
Beyond that, though, what the Braves are doing is remarkably similar to that which other teams have done and will always do, the San Francisco Giants (which Baggarly covers) included: they have gone to where the money is. Or, at the very least, to where the people with the money are. And where those people happen to be and what those people happen to look like are a function of forces far more powerful than that which any one baseball team can muster or control.
That’s true to a point, if you accept that a team has done all in its marketing and outreach power to build fanbase that reflects the racial, ethnic and socio-economic diversity of its surrounding communities. Maybe the Braves have done that. Maybe they haven’t.
And it’s not entirely true that the San Francisco Giants “went where the money was” when they moved from Candlestick Park to AT&T Park in 2000. Calcaterra claims the Giants moved to SOMA (South of Market) just as the first tech boom was bringing young people with cash to that part of the city. In reality, the Giants identified the site for AT&T Park in 1994 and announced their intention to build a ballpark there at the end of 1995, according to Staci Slaughter, the Giants’ senior vice president of communications and senior adviser to the CEO. Netscape Communications — the company behind the first publicly available web browser — had just gone public. The commercialization of the web — which became known as the Dot Com Boom — hadn’t yet materialized, certainly not in Mission Bay, the neighborhood surrounding the AT&T Park site. When the Giants broke ground on the park, that part of the city was still largely undeveloped, post-industrial property.
The Giants chose that location for a variety of reasons, not the least of which included several failed attempts to move to Santa Clara County, a move voters rejected multiple times. But once the team decided to stay in San Francisco, Slaughter says, they wanted a location that would be easily accessible via public transportation for their entire ethnically- and racially-diverse fan base, something Candlestick Park never offered.
Did the area surrounding AT&T Park blossom into a high-tech corridor? Yes, for a period of time, during the Dot Com Boom, and again with what folks here called 2.0, with the Dot Com Bust and the Great Recession sandwiched in between. But the Giants didn’t chase money that was already there. Arguably, they brought at least some of the money to the neighborhood when they built the ballpark without much in the way of government funds or help.
This is not a post to criticize the Braves and applaud the Giants or to set those two franchises on opposite ends of a racial-sensitivity spectrum. The Giants are in the business to make money and win championships as much as the Braves are. And in pursuit of those goals, the Giants haven’t acted charitably toward their neighbors, the Oakland Athletics, as the two continue to fight over whether the A’s can move to San Jose. At the same time, the Braves showcase an outfield of three African-American players (Justin Upton, B.J. Upton and Jason Heyward) at a time of dwindling numbers of African-Americans in professional baseball. The Giants have no African-Americans on their roster, a noticeable absence for a team that has featured Willie Mays, Willie McCovey and Barry Bonds.
Still, as the Donald Sterling situation highlights, there is an inter-connectedness between race, economics and sports. And it’s fair to question whether sports teams should take that inter-connectedness into account when making decisions that will significantly affect the franchise, the fans and the community.
Wendy writes about sports and the business of sports. She's been published most recently by Vice Sports, Deadspin and NewYorker.com. You can find her work at wendythurm.pressfolios.com and follow her on Twitter @hangingsliders.
Nice, balanced take, Wendy. I personally subscribe to the idea that owners (or ownership groups) should consider themselves stewards of a public trust. To be fair, winning games is probably the best thing to do with that public trust, and saving money makes winning games easier, but as a whole, the entire Cobb County move stinks, from both a financial- and community-oriented perspective.
If it stunk from a financial standpoint, they wouldn’t be doing it, of course.
That would depend on whose finances you care about.
yeah, I meant taxpayer standpoint. Publicly funded stadiums have pretty much universally been shown to be a terrible investment and not bringing any of the benefits asserted by public officials and team owners.
I actually sort of like one aspect of the Cobb County move, as a Braves fan living inside the perimeter. If we’re going to have publicly-funded stadiums, and we undoubtedly will for the foreseeable future, then we might as well get wealthy fans to bear the tax burden. Wealthy taxpayers in outlying metro areas are often free-riders on projects financed by city residents, and I think it’s a nice silver lining to see that dynamic being flipped.
On the one hand, the area around Turner Field is not exactly in the heart of downtown Atlanta, off the beaten path enough so it’s not a great location in terms of accessibility or quality of non-game activities.
On the other hand, the proposed Cobb County location is right smack dab in the heart of a major traffic congestion zone. The folks attending a game at the new location need to be rich enough to afford a helicopter, especially for early evening weekday games.
Just don’t see the reason for this, except as a bargaining chip to get concessions from the City of Atlanta for renovations.
“That’s true to a point, if you accept that a team has done all in its marketing and outreach power to build fanbase that reflects the racial, ethnic and socio-economic diversity of its surrounding communities. Maybe the Braves have done that. Maybe they haven’t.”
It’s a business’s responsibility to market in whatever manner it thinks will return the most $$$. So I guarantee the Braves haven’t outreached in the way that you see as their civic duty. No profit-oriented business would in a milliontrillion years market in the way you suggest.
I’d suggest rather than impose responsibilities on these clubs in return for the huge subsidies we give them, how about we just stop those subsidies? Rather than impose a quota system on them in turns of who they market to.
Because making a profit is the only motive humans should ever have in mind?
It’s remarkable how odd the American mindset of the last 30 years has become.
No, making a profit is the motive a *business* should have in mind, or else it’s not acting in the interests of its owners.
I think part of the argument here is that baseball teams are not like other businesses. If you’re looking to make money, you don’t buy a sports team. You can accept or reject the validity of that idea, but don’t portray the other side as dumb for not thinking the Braves’ goal should be maximizing revenue.
The Braves are owned by a publicly held corporation. So…
I was talking about businesses. Shareholder profit uber alles has only been the prevailing theory of corporate America for the last 30 years or so. It’s a very new and radical concept.
Previously, businesses and corporations also weighted their responsibilities to their customers, employees, and communities.
How could it possibly be bad for business to market your team to all ethnic and racial groups, if the business is located in an ethnically and racially diverse area? Isn’t the goal to expand the fan base?
ROI, Wendy.
A dollar spent in one market segment doesn’t necessarily return the same revenue as a dollar spent in a different market segment.
If you want baseball teams to act as public trusts then advocate for nationalizing them, otherwise they should be managed and run as what they are: businesses. Advocating for a middle path seems novel and progressive, but a business that operates against the profit motive won’t be in business very long.
I fully understand ROI and that the same marketing/outreach may result in different responses in different segments of the fan base. That doesn’t mean that tailored approaches to expand the fan base is wasting money or only something a team would do if it were a public trust.
I am not arguing that it would be bad for business to change the marketing strategy, only pointing out that it could be bad for business.
Every sports team wants a larger fan base, but the reality for baseball is that it is losing the competition for minorites and especially urban minorities. Can that trend be changed? Sure, but I think it’s a more difficult solution than just spending dollars on marketing and waiting for the turnstiles to start spinning.
This is just nuts. First, you make it a moral argument that the Brave can only be excused if they’ve made said marketing moves. Now, you pretend you know more about marketing than the professionals they’ve hired to do it for them. Anything they’re not already doing, it’s stupid to suggest they should so because you understand marketing.
To echo what others have said, no amount of marketing is going to turn African-American kids in inner-city Atlanta into baseball fans. The trend of fewer AA kids and families getting involved with baseball has more to do with culture, costs, availability of playing fields, etc. than an allotment of marketing dollars by MLB franchises. As popular as the Blackhawks are in Chicago, I (highly) doubt they are spending much dough marketing to Chicago’s AA population.
I don’t think that the idea of a public trust really applies to privately or publicly held corporations getting tax dollars to help cover stadium costs. That’s usually only invoked in the context of scarce public resources (federally owned land, airwaves, etc.) being sold or given away. Throwing hundreds of millions at ball clubs to help build a stadium may not make a very good ROI (I really don’t know — there are a number of factors to be taken into account), but it’s still a financial/economic investment in the community. Of course, corporate officers should consider the impact of their actions on the communities in which they exist, but publicly held corporations are driven by the bottom line, as they should be.
Wendy, this is very similar to the arguments made in the comment sections of articles about Apple. Should Apple make entry level phones to improve market share, or should it focus on simply making money by sticking with the high margin niche markets? Your comment, that it is self-evidently beneficial to expand market share, is not obvious to me and to others. Perhaps that would be a topic for another post. 🙂
I agree with Calcaterra’s bottom line: the economic and political forces that have resulted in various racist features of Atlanta’s demography, including residential segregation and poor public transit options, are far beyond the Braves’ ability to control or really even affect to any great degree. They were offered a sweetheart deal by Cobb County, they accepted (the same way any business organization in their situation would), and it’s not very clear to me that the move will make the stadium relatively less accessible to minority fans in the metropolitan area. Some people who know Atlanta a lot better than I do say that black people living in Atlanta proper are generally too poor to attend baseball games anyway, and that black Braves fans already tend to live in the suburbs (not necessarily Cobb County).
As for the Braves’ racist iconography and racist caricature of a war chant, no excuse. I hope they will rename the team and jettison all the racist trappings of their current theme, but I can’t see it happening anytime soon. (I think the Washington football team will be the first domino to fall, at which point pressure on the Indians and Braves will increase.)
As a fan of the former Cleveland Napoleons, that domino cannot fall soon enough. The first reason I haven’t bought any Indians apparel in years is very pragmatic: the Clevelands aren’t going to ever sign a star for their entire career. The second reason is because purchasing ‘Indians’ gear is unconscionable to me (and also because the block-C logo is, from an aesthetic perspective, uninspiring).
So my reason is really somewhat selfish: the sooner the dominoes fall, the sooner I can actually purchase gear for my favored ballist club.
How far will the dominoes fall? San Francisco Giants? If the name is offensive to giants, should it be changed? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigantism
That’s a deeply stupid comparison. Have people who suffer from the condition of gigantism historically been subjected to genocide, and are they currently discriminated against? Has their cultural heritage been misappropriated by people who have no connection to them? If not, I think the Giants can continue using their name without qualms.
Soon we will all be more considerate to other people! Oh the humanity!
And of course, “Giants” isn’t meant as a reference to people with Gigantism; the slew of Native America inspired team names clearly are.
Clearly are, ah, *meant to refer to Native Americans.
My comment was half hyperbole and half joke. I realize these are completely different, and in no universe would anyone really be offended by the Giants, even someone who is a real life Giant. However, I don’t really think there is much of a real uproar over team names like the Braves, and I do wonder what the real difference is between a name like the Braves and the Padres, Angels, or Fighting Irish, all of which represent religions or ethnicities that have suffered genocide and been discriminated against, and have been misappropriated by people who have no connection to them.
Catholic priests and… angels have been subjected to genocide? This is news to me.
The Infinite Monkey Theorem has practically applied and yielded this post. Engineering!
Regardless, it’s not clear why you’re acting as though a franchise name change that inspired the following at its inception is worthy of defense: http://webpages.charter.net/joekuras/oldpd01.jpg
You can just feel the earnestness oozing out of the .jpg.
Won’t somebody stop and think about the genocide of angels?!
Maybe the Cleveland Indians should change their name to the Cleveland Indians and have their logo as a guy in a turban.
If these aren’t jokes, please look up “represents” in a dictionary. If they are, carry on. I’d bet you could find more people offended by the cartoonish Padres mascot than Homer the Brave.
I am really unclear about what you’re getting at, TKDC. I presume you’re referring to Catholics, so I’ll ask again: when have Catholics been subjected to genocide? I’m aware of cases in which Catholics have been swept up in genocide, or cases in which people of a particular ethnic group have been identified in part on the basis of their Catholicism, but not cases in which Catholics as Catholics were targeted for mass murder. But I’m always willing to learn.
I think the issue is less concerning genocide and more concerning the fact that Native Americans still face discrimination in the US. A stereotype caricature only furthers the basis for discrimination. If Catholics are subject to widespread discrimination like Native Americans, and they are being stereotyped in their representation, then that would also be a problem.
Funfact for the day: Indians or Native Americans is an actual ethnic group. Giants aren’t real, Angels aren’t people and Padres is an occupation and not a race. Fighting Irish is the only comparison that works but if there is ever a big movement by Irish folk to remove it.. eh why not?
With regards historic persecution of Catholic priests Anon21, I suggest looking into English history during the Tudor period (most appropriate Elizabeth I). Then again during this period pretty much all religious entities were subjected to persecution at one time or another dependent upon the belief system of those in power.
@Anon21:
You’re taking an already cartoonish set of criteria for what makes a team mascot “wrong” (I won’t use offensive because apparently being or not being offensive is not part of the criteria) and just adding layer after layer so that it only fits Native Americans. Apparently, you could have a team named the suicide bombers and the mascot could be a guy in a turbin with a bomb strapped to his chest and that would be okay, but having a tomahawk on your jersey and a mascot that is a giant baseball head is wrong. And not applying your new, more nuanced for no particular reason criteria, millions of Catholic Poles were killed by Hitler’s army.
@Naliemegod
Is there actually a big movement for the Braves to change their team name? Also, Brave is an “occupation” not a race.
@Steven
Every group of people “faces discrimination” in the US and will until the end of time. I’m not sure I believe your point about the Braves furthering discrimination. Do you have anything to back that up? The Braves are not making fun of Native Americans. Now, if you want to talk about the other 29 teams’ fans that mockingly do the Tomahawk Chop, I’m willing to talk about how all of those people are racists. Seriously, if it was so offensive, how come every fan base does it when their team is beating the Braves? I’ve never seen someone mockingly burn a cross. Oh yeah, because that is actually offensive.
No, I’m getting at what it is in particular about appropriating images and cultural representations of Native Americans that is wrong. If you want a general rule, it’s that groups that have suffered great wrongs at the hands of our society should not be appropriated, turned into a stereotyped symbol, or (obviously) mocked for purposes of marketing a sports team. If you are going to deploy marginalized groups or representatives in your marketing, you need to be thoughtful or careful, do it in a respectful way, and avoid crude stereotypes. The Braves have never approached their team name, iconography, and cheer with that kind of care or respect.
Because they were Poles, not because they were Catholics. The Nazi regime attempted to marginalize and subordinate the Catholic Church in Germany to the state because it was a competing center of power and legitimacy. In the course of that campaign, some church leaders were attacked or intimidated but few, if any, were killed. Church property was sometimes expropriated. Lay German Catholics were never targeted for arrest, murder, or persecution, although some individual Catholics perceived as active opponents of the regime were persecuted, arrested, and killed to the same extent non-Catholic political opponents were persecuted, arrested, and killed.
It’s pretty clearly both. A white warrior figure will rarely, if ever, be characterized as a “brave,” and the tomahawk icon and chant are exclusively associated with white stereotypes of Native Americans. No one has ever bothered to deny this.
No, actually they don’t. The kind of dudes who own and run the Braves do not face discrimination in any meaningful sense.
Because most people don’t care about not being assholes to Native Americans?
Most of your distinctions are paper thin, but I’ll say fine to your general rule and say it does not apply to the Braves.
Dine College is a Navajo chartered tribal college in Arizona. Its sports teams are the called the Warriors. One of the sports they compete in is archery.
The MLB phenomenon that has always struck me as racist are the green T-shirts and jerseys (often with a shamrock) that are made exclusively for the white player on some teams (Inge on the Tigers, Konerko on the White Sox, and others) that is seen as the team’s scrappy blue-collar player. As far as I can tell, these shirts and jerseys are made to appeal to and be marketed to fans with Irish or Euro-centric dispositions. To be blunt about it, here in Detroit those shirts and jerseys are worn by people who use out-dated terms to refer to blacks and other minorities. I know for a fact that Brandon Inge is not Irish, so I am not quite sure how MLB would explain producing this jersey for Inge and not Austin Jackson, but I would be interested to hear their response.
The entire White Sox team wears those jerseys either on September 17, or a home date near it, for a “halfway to St Pat’s” promotion. Right now they sell Konerko, who is their captain and longest-tenured player, and Sale, who is their best player. Dollars to donuts they’ll be selling an Abreu one later this year since his jersey jumped into the top 10 already.
I don’t think Konerko or Inge is “the white player” seeing as the majority of the players are white.
Yinka, I would be interested to know if the White Sox do sell a green Abreu jersey. I would also be interested to know if they sell at all. Detroit is a more segregated town than most, I will admit, but here some fans seem to use the green jerseys as short-hand for ‘I’m white, deal with it’.
Steven, read the rest of the description.
Uh, yuck.
Lots of teams produce green tees and green jerseys. The object of course is to sell more of said tees and jerseys. My interest in a green Royals jersey doesn’t make me an awful racist, does it?
That Guy, way to miss the point completely.
One problem with this discussion is that it has to take place with the cloud of publicly financed stadiums over it. I heard somewhere (not sure if this is true, but it is believable) that the Atlanta Falcons had a higher percentage of African-American season ticket holders than any other team in the NFL. I have no idea where the Braves rank, but my guess is not very high. Atlanta ponied up the dough to build a new stadium for the Falcons, who equally to the Braves, didn’t so much need one as much as they knew they could get one. I’m not blaming sides here. If you’re Atlanta, why compound one bad decision with another (publicly financing stadiums is almost always a bad move). If you’re the Braves, even putting aside feeling slighted by the city, why not take a sweetheart deal from Cobb County when one wasn’t coming from Atlanta.
And whether it is economic or cultural or more likely some of both, the map the Braves showed of where their fans were coming from centers not around downtown Atlanta but the North and Western suburbs. That was so even with the difficult location.
And finally, to me, the conflation in the article of the Braves logo and this decision seems like something that would be thrown out in court as having too much of a prejudicial effect (large) considering its value as evidence (very small).
I included a discussion of the Tomahawk Chop because it adds to the question of how teams market to and bring in fans in an ethnically and racially diverse community.
In what way and in what direction does the marketing of the Tomahawk Chop (to the extent you can call this marketing anymore than you can say the Red Sox market “F*&% the Yankees” chants – which I’ll admit you can at least somewhat) evince any sort of motives or policies of a media conglomerate’s decision to move its stadium to a place that is much more convenient to the majority of the fans that go to the games (even though it is now inconvenient), and that, oh by the way, is just begging to make the asinine decision of giving them a boatload of money to do so?
The original discussion and the article you talk about is clearly about a white/black, rich/poor, suburban/urban dichotomy, and what role a professional baseball team has to play in it. To me, this is very important and should be discussed, so I really do applaud you for writing about this. Adding in the discussion of the Tomahawk Chop seems to be an attempt to say “well, we don’t know why they’re moving, but they do this thing that I’m going to say so many people find very offensive (without citation) and, well, you know…”
I don’t see a connection at all. Do we have any reason to believe the urban, poor or black fans dislike the Tomahawk Chop? Maybe you should have just wrote two articles? I mean, you are a lawyer, so I’m sure you understand how introducing a topic that is superficially related, but really does not provide any meaningful evidence can be misleading, right?
As someone who has been to many Braves games, I can assure you that when the team is behind by one run and Jason Heyward or Freddie Freeman is at bat with the bases loaded, everyone in the stadium is doing the chop regardless of ethnicity. This whole thing with the Baggerly article is nothing more than the sort of ethnic stereotyping that the media usually wrings its hands over, and the easy and thoughtless application of the “redneck” label to Southerners that wins you cool points in oh-so-trendy San Francisco.
The Braves have plenty of marketing data in hand showing that the bulk of their fans who actually attend games are coming from the northern suburbs. They have tried to market, quite extensively, in the urban area but with little success. As has been pointed out, there are larger cultural factors at work there. Further, consider this: Public transportation was mentioned. Well, the city of Atlanta has never seen fit to extend a MARTA line to Turner Field, or to Fulton County Stadium before that. If you want to go to a game on the MARTA, you have to get off at the Underground stop and either walk about 20 blocks crossing heavy-traffic downtown streets, or wait for a bus that takes absolutely freaking forever.
The Tomahawk Chop was thrown in, not because it’s germane to the discussion, but just because it’s obnoxious to listen to. It gets tiresome VERY quickly. I’ll have to say, though, that the horns the soccer fans blew non-stop at the last World Cup made the Tomahawk Chop sound like a symphony.
I notice the Chicago Blackhawks aren’t getting any flack here … and I don’t think the Blackhawks have any black players. Are they a racist organization? I don’t think so. (My husband became a Blackhawks fan as a child, largely because he liked their logo. I sympathize with the Cleveland Indians fan — it IS a boring logo!)
Hockey, like baseball, is a sport that is having trouble attracting black youth to its leagues. It’s a problem that needs to be addressed through outreach programs by each pro franchise.
Garbage article. Why did I spend the time reading this?
You should demand your money back
Sorry guys, I forgot my full name. But anyway, all non-Germans are bad people.
Just want to say, even as an Oakland fan, <3 the Giants' location. Very accessible by public transit from anywhere in city (though tangled web of Bay transit authorities tries hard to stop you sometimes). I could get from Walnut Creek to Pac Bell in about an hr.
You're definitely right to point out that the Mission Bay/Dogpatch/SOMA/whatever you call it location wasn't anywhere near like what it is now back when they moved there, and if anything the stadium brought business there and not vice versa.
Praying we can find an Oakland location that will do the same thing. I know the owners have to make money, and maybe it's old fashioned of me (aren't I too young for that?), but I agree that when you buy an MLB franchise you're buying into a semi-public good, and there's a tacit obligation to promote fair access (across socioeconomic lines) to the game and the team.
It’s rather amusing that perhaps the one real example of a new ballpark helping build a neighborhood is one of the few (or only?) that was done without public financing.
Thank your bloody stars Peter Magowan showed up.
The voters would never ever have approved a publically funded ballpark.
And let’s be fair, china basin was always the linchpin for future development in sf, way before the Giants broke ground.
In fact, the mega ucsf complex planning predates the ballpark
I’m a Native American who cannot understand why the tomahawk chop should offend anyone.
This isn’t actually very difficult… it’s a stereotyped, caricatured mockery of what ignorant white people imagine Native American music or “war chants” sounds like. If they used actual Native American music, that would be one thing (not that it would necessarily be a good thing, but it would be different). But instead, they send the message that Native American culture is so unworthy of respect that you can just make up some nonsense to stand in for it.
Just think how much better our country would be if everyone was the type of person who generally didn’t find things offensive. Now think about how much worse our country would be if everyone was the type of person who told other people what should offend them and if they weren’t offended, they weren’t smart.
What
Or, I might think how much better our country would be we didn’t shoot ourselves in the foot by marginalizing and disenfranchising minority groups, thus failing to maximize the national talent pool.
Completely agree
I didn’t say it should offend him, but I do think pretending that he can’t even understand why it would offend anyone is disingenuous.
So your point is that nobody should tell anyone else what does or doesn’t offend them… and from this, you declare that the Tomahawk should be allowed because it doesn’t to offend you, a single person? God you are stupid.
@Steven I think you’re talking to me but I’m not sure because I never said anything about a Tomahawk? But you are right about my point. People should stop telling other people what should offend them.
As someone who is also Native American, Im not offended whatsoever by the Cleveland Indians, Washington Redskins, Atlanta Braves, etc., etc. The fact that these names were chosen is in of itself a sign of respect. Nobody names their teams the bunnies or the turkeys. Its the jaguars, the hawks, and so forth. The motivation to have these team names changed has nothing to do with our people being offended, but by white people who desperately seek excuses to be outraged in the first place. What does offend me is people like Elizabeth Warren who lie and appropriate my heritage for career advantage through affirmative action. Of course that will never make national news and hashed over for weeks because we all know which way over 90% of media apparatchiks lean.
My view is of the system is pretty straight forward – American politics is just a continuation of the Civil War- two factions of white people going at it. Only those on left realize theyre outnumbered (about twice as many conservatives as there are liberals- 40%/20%) so they use us minorities as a weapon to bludgeon the right and augment their numbers. Its why I dont vote, because I know neither side cares about anyone but themselves.
My high school team was the Turkey Creek Gobblers.
Don’t forget the Orioles, Blue Jays, and Cardinals.
Well, I am a Native American who is offended by it. But clearly, me and every Native American who is offended by it are brainwashed by the liberals. Only your opinion is correct. You are so smart, and clearly you don’t only care about your own opinion in a manner that you condemn.
@HankG – I am talking about pro-sports, where grown men get paid millions and not a kids team. At the time the names were chosen, it was a homage to our ancestors as a warrior people, and the fear and respect they at one time commanded. There was no malice in their name choice. As for the bird names, there is nothing shameful about it. It goes without saying that those bird names were chosen because they are indigenous. Having respect and appreciation for animals and local wildlife is something I can relate to and admire.
@Lawrence – I have no idea if you are indeed a Native American like me and Pillow or are a white man simply claiming so to be contrarian. But for arguments sake, well assume youre telling the truth. Then you are indeed correct: you are brainwashed. You should not be siding with liberals nor conservatives. They are just trying to use us in their perpetual intraracial power struggle. The team owners are not exploiting us like these outrage activists. The billionaire owners will make money irregardless of what their franchises are called. The fans will support any team that includes their locality in the name.
The only thing in this world you can count on is family, blood brothers, and your tribe. These people have no concern for our well-being, so why involve ourselves in their petty squabbles and obsessions?
I’m not sure what you’re going for here, CantStand. You say that you and Lawrence shouldn’t be offended because neither Republicans nor Democrats care about you? How does that prevent someone from being offended by it? Lawrence hasn’t stated that he will always vote for party x or candidate x if they are against this. Voting was only inserted by you. I’m not sure what Lawrence would say, but I agree that this issue is probably not big enough to 100% decide someone’s vote. Someone can still be offended.
Second, exploitation is the wrong word in my opinion. Owners are not using the moniker “Braves” to increase revenue. It doesn’t matter what the owners think or intend. What matters is that Native American discrimination still persists, some of the old “uncivilized” or “completely foreign” labels still exist which could contribute to discrimination, and the caricature mascot and tomahawk chop continue these stereotypes about Native Americans. The discrimination is what matters in this case, not whatever the owners intend.
“Nobody names their teams the bunnies or the turkeys”
Jacksonville University’s nickname is the Jackrabbits. And of course Rabbit Maranville is in the Hall of Fame, which is also probably racist since he was considered the best SS in the world between Honus Wagner and Phil Rizzuto by many people with no thought given to Willie Wells, Dobie Moore or Dick Lundy.
I won’t speak on the Orioles and the Cardinals, but Blue Jays are a fairly aggressive bird, and in my yard, kick the shit out of the Orioles and Cardinals when they want to.
“Stereotyped mockery”. Then wtf is Bernie the Brewer? Fun loving stereotyped mockery?
Those running sausages offend my vegan beliefs.
“But instead, they send the message that Native American culture is so unworthy of respect that you can just make up some nonsense to stand in for it.”
How is that culture worthy of respect? What exactly did that culture accomplish that has had any sort of relevant impact today?
In fairness, they had a huge disadvantage in that they weren’t part of the Eurasian continent. Yet merely existing is not a reason to celebrate something.
Fuck off. No one is interested in your barely-disguised white supremacist word vomit.
I don’t see what this has to do with being white. All cultures located on the dominant land mass (Eurasia) have contributed much more to the world we have today.
White people are a small part of that. As are cultures from the middle east, the far east, India, and others who are all land-linked.
“How is that culture worthy of respect? … merely existing is not a reason to celebrate something.”
Well, decent people do in fact respect other humans for “merely existing,” as a matter of course. But I suppose white supremacists don’t hold to the principle that basic respect and dignity is something owed to every person by default.
This has nothing to do with specific people. All people deserve respect, regardless of race or culture. Being a Native American doesn’t, in any way shape or form, make you less of a human than anyone else.
What I’m asking is, as a whole, what have the cultures native to the Americas accomplished? From a historical standpoint, what have they accomplished compared to any culture on the Eurasian continent?
The answer is nothing. Why do I have to respect and celebrate a conquered culture?
You can’t really argue the point so you’d rather frame the question down to individual people and then call me a racist. This has nothing to do with individuals.
I win.
Anyone who has been to Turner Field can understand why, when given the opportunity, the Braves might want to relocate, especially when given financial incentive to do so. The stadium is located in a desolate island of sorts amidst giant asphalt parking lots and houses.
Want to grab a bite to eat before the game? You’d better be driving, because there are very limited options within walking distance of the Ted. How about grabbing a beer afterward and then hopping on MARTA to get home? Not an option, unless you want to walk at least a mile up to downtown. Staying the night? You’ll need to walk to/from the Hilton about 3/4 of a mile away.
For the past few years, the Braves have tried working with the city to improve the gameday experience, both in creating better public transportation access and a greater non-game experience (restaurants, shops, entertainment, etc). The city, meanwhile, focused its efforts on funding the new Falcons stadium instead. Let’s not pretend that the economic impact of a year’s worth of NFL games comes anywhere close to that of the 81+ MLB games.
This move is mostly financial (who would say no $200MM to get out of a suboptimal living arrangement), perhaps a tad vengeful (toward a city that basically dared the Braves to look elsewhere), but in no way “racist”.
Isn’t the move to Cobb County going to make accessibility by public transportation much, much worse? Driving in a very congested area will be the only option.
Wendy, this is not your best work, and most of your articles are very good. I find it offensive when journalists (which I consider you to be) make points by asking questions that are really designed to make a point. “That’s true to a point, if you accept that a team has done all in its marketing and outreach power to build fanbase that reflects the racial, ethnic and socio-economic diversity of its surrounding communities. Maybe the Braves have done that. Maybe they haven’t.” You are obviously trying to make a point here — don’t hide behind a “maybe they did and maybe they didn’t.”
Also, how can you hold up the Giants’ move to SF proper as being less “racist” than Atlanta’s move, considering the Giants’ many attempts to move to much less diverse Santa Clara county. The fact that they were unsuccessful for reasons beyond their control many times does not excuse them, does it? Why aren’t they being subjected to the same analysis? Or why aren’t the 49ers being subjected to the same analysis for their new park? Shouldn’t they have moved to much more diverse SF, or stayed in the much more diverse Candlestick area?
Hey, I’m just a normal kid, like you, except that I ask questions. And because I’m brave enough to ask questions, I come under scrutiny.
If you want to fault me, do so because I didn’t ask the Braves to give me details on their marketing plans over the last 10 years. I should have done that. I don’t actually know if and to what extent the Braves have made an effort to expand their fan base in a way that reflects the racial and ethnic diversity of the region.
I think a few people here have already correctly faulted you for not understanding that a dollar spent to gain non-black/(and what-else) returns less than a dollar spent on white fans. Counter this point, and you can probably quit buying beer for yourself across this entire country.
Is Santa Clara less diverse than San Francisco? Not according to the 2000 and 2010 census data. San Francisco has a larger African American population (although it’s shrinking) but Santa Clara has a higher percentage of Asian Americans and Latinos/Latinas. Both hover around 50% white.
San Jose is the third largest city in California after LA and San Diego.
http://www.bayareacensus.ca.gov/counties/SantaClaraCounty.htm
http://www.bayareacensus.ca.gov/counties/SanFranciscoCounty.htm
i skipped down to lambaste (sp?) some grammar!!
Mmm…basted lamb.
This article falls well short of the high standards Wendy Thume has set for her work. It’s heavy on innuendo, light on facts, and devoid of an opinion or meaningful analysis.
“Maybe the Braves have done that. Maybe they haven’t.”
I generally click on an article at Fangraphs that provides me facts, analysis, or some reasoned opinion that will lead me to an some answer to such a question. Unfortunately, raising this question over and over seems to be the overarching theme of this article rather than attempting to answer it.
good thing it’s by Wendy Thurm then
She also better tell me the meaning of life and whether the chicken or the egg came first!
Mrs Thurm,
While this article was an interesting read, I don’t think you put the time in to research it that it requires. In this country, racial issues are a live wire so to speak, and talk about them in relationship to a team that you apparently don’t follow closely is asking for trouble.
Turner Field is in a bad area, see a map of Atlanta Crime Rates:
http://www.neighborhoodscout.com/ga/atlanta/crime/
Turner Field is not in a good geographical locations compared to ticket sales:
http://ftw.usatoday.com/2013/11/why-the-braves-want-to-move-in-one-ticket-sales-map
Also, I’d like to mention that Turner Field is not located near a Mass Transit station. Sure, buses are run on game day, but it is certainly not easily available by public transportation.
Now, I know you took great pains to stress that you weren’t calling the Braves racist. I respect that, but I don’t really see that as an excuse not to look into the subject before making this post. I generally enjoy the content you post to the site, and perhaps I am biased as a Braves fan, but to use a San Francisco beat writer as your primary source for an article that focused on Atlanta’s race relations is not a good idea.
The article also didn’t mention their impossibly bad TV deal. They need a better revenue stream in order to stay competitive now that nearly all other teams have gargantuan TV money.
The fact that they locked in so many young players after the stadium deal was announced means it’s already a victory for the goal remaining competitive for a World Series — despite Edward Turner’s desperate cash grab for a quick TV deal that actively devalued a franchise.
I’m a huge fan of the site and I don’t have a huge problem with the post per se, but one of the reasons I read FG every day and have almost completely abandoned ESPN/Grantland tons of other sites is the creeping political/social commentary that has infested those sites. There’s plenty of venues for this if you are into that sort of thing or are the kind of person who doesn’t get elevated blood pressure from it. I come here because I like to have a place where I can find well-written baseball analysis without all of that.
Just my $.02 and maybe I’m the only one who feels this way. I just hope FG doesn’t go down this road on a regular basis.
Sports are my last refuge from confronting things in this world that matter — please don’t ruin them with commentary about how they too have a role in our society!
I know better than to engage anonymous Internet trolls in a flame war and so I won’t. I am on the volunteer board of one of the largest youth baseball clubs in the country so I spend a couple dozen hours a month volunteering at the intersection of sport and society where the rubber meets the road, not just behind a keyboard.
It’s not that these issues do not matter to me, it’s just that my personal preference, for whatever it is worth to the people who actually run this website, is to not see it specifcically here.
That’s the point of the post. I write about business issues. In many cases, those raise tough questions about race, ethnicity, socio-economic status, etc.
As a lawyer I’ve enjoyed your posts in the past on legal and business related issues. This post exists for the sole reason of stirring up controversy on political and racial issues, as far as it seems to me. Again, I don’t even have much I disagree with (although I think the Braves stadium issue is almost 100% money driven), it’s just jarring to find that here at FG.
No, this post doesn’t exist to stir up controversy. It exists to raise serious issues that MLB and its teams confront on a daily basis. If you’re not comfortable with those topics, feel free to skip these posts. But I’m not going to shy away from them just because race and ethnicity are involved.
And most of us appreciate that willingness, Wendy!
Thanks for your frankness, and I will. As my final word on this topic, your post assumes a critical fact which is a long way from being proven – namely, that the loss of this stadium will be a net negative for the surrounding area. Have you ever actually been? It’s currently actually a blighted area, and my understanding is that Georgia State University has purchased the land and plans to build on it campus infrastructure including stores and private businesses that will actually be of far greater net economic benefit to area residents than a baseball stadium that currently serves to do almost nothing other than to attract suburbanites who do nothing in the area other than park and spend money at the ballpark itself, then leave back to their suburban homes. Maybe, in the final analysis, one or the other option is legitimately better for the surrounding community, but I don’t know what that answer is and nothing in this post even hints at it. Part of why I don’t disagree strongly with the post is that it doesn’t really even have anything analytical to either agree or disagree with, just assertions based on assumptions and gratuitous swipes at the Tomahawk Chop.
The sort of analysis that says that a ballpark leaving an area densely populated by minorities is ispo facto bad for minorities is lazy and is less than the analytical rigor given on this very site to analyzing Chris Johnson’s value as a third baseman or the wisdom of his contract extension.
Given the relative gravity of the two issues it would have been better not to address the issue at all and leave the baseless instigation to Grantland, et al.
As a Braves fan, I’ve watched from a distance for years as the Braves did community events for urban youth, gave tickets free or at significant discounts to the same, sought development around the stadium, acquired African-American stars, and fought with MARTA over access to the stadium. I don’t know what more a business could reasonably be asked to do.
Turner Field was all but donated to the Braves as the result of the Olympics. It’s doubtful they would have remained in that section of Atlanta otherwise. Regardless of race, the fact is that a great majority of their ticket buyers reside in the northern suburbs. If Atlanta were not highly segregated, this would be just a ho-hum story of a business moving closer to its customers and everyone winning. I long for the day when we can completely ignore race in all facets of life, but for now doing so results in accusations of racism.
As a perhaps not-irrelevant point, the Braves are currently owned by a Denver-based company.
If you spent less time defending the Giants, a trivial portion of Craig Calcaterra’s point, this might have accomplished something. To me, Craig is right on point and it’s not even close. I’d like to know a little more about why you think he’s wrong rather than why you think his choice of the Giants as a representative of several organizations was not accurate.
I think Craig and I essentially agree, but I do not think that sports teams always do or should make business decisions that simply chase money — without any consideration for how they will affect their ethnically and racially-mixed fan base.
Setting the record straight on the Giants was important because Craig drew an analogy that wasn’t supported by the facts.
There are many examples we could look at on both sides.
As one potential example, the new Nats stadium is in downtown DC and I see no evidence that the people who actually attend Nats games are any more ethnically diverse than the crowds that come to the Trop
ha ha what a riot, no one comes to the Trop at all.
“As one potential example, the new Nats stadium is in downtown DC and I see no evidence that the people who actually attend Nats games are any more ethnically diverse than the crowds that come to the Trop”
Leon, that has been my experience also. I live in Chicago and have attended dozens of White Sox, Cubs, Bears, Blackhawks and Bulls games over the last 20 plus years and virtually everyone at the games is either White or (increasingly) Hispanic. Black Americans simply do not attend pro sporting events in any meaningful way. At least that has been my unscientific observation.
I have also attended baseball games at 20 different stadiums, 19 currently active and 1 (Old Comiskey) now a parking lot. They include Toronto, Boston, Baltimore, D.C., Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Detroit, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, K.C., Denver, Seattle, S.F., L.A., Anaheim, San Diego and Chicago, North and South. Outside of areas with a large Hispanic population, the demographics of the fans attending games in all the cities mentioned were very similar.
Or take a look at the crowds at a Yankees game. You would think it’s located in Riverdale and not South Bronx.
Or for that matter you don’t see 90% Chinese/Vietnamese crowds at the Mets games either.
Wendy Thurm fails at logic, fails at empirical knowledge, fails at sports writing, and generally fails.
She definitely failed at the first two. She’s mistaking our criticism for our saying that this subject should not be talked about. It’s fine to talk about this subject as long as you don’t just take a complete hack job by a local writer and say, “Look at this! I don’t really know anything about the Braves but he must be right because everyone pretty much agrees that the Braves are racist.” Oh and throw in some meaningless support of her hometown team at that. So not the wrong topic, just the complete wrong way of going about it. The Braves are a national brand but the decision to move the team was a very local one and one that she obviously doesn’t know much about except for what her San Francisco brethren have been writing.
Craig’s mention of the Giants, factual or not, had nothing to do with his position. He said you could look at multiple teams so he would have just inserted another example. So again, not relevant to the overall position. Unless you are arguing that no teams would apply in his analogy. Which best I can tell, you are not.
I assume Craig used the Giants as an example because Andy Baggarly is a Giants beat writer and Craig was intimating — hey, look at your own back yard. Well, the Giants situation is not the same because the facts are different. So you can’t say “All the teams do it,” then pick one out that didn’t in that way.
It’s fine to argue against the example if you are arguing the point that “None of the teams do it.” But you don’t seem to be arguing that point. Admittedly it’s a little difficult to figure out what you are arguing. If you’re not arguing that, it seems silly to poke holes in one example when you concede that there are other examples that would apply.
In other words. Just as you felt Craig was intimating “hey, look at your own back yard,” this article similarly feels like, “hey, don’t talk bad about my back yard.”
Your arguments just don’t logically line up unless you are arguing that no team has ever moved simply because of money.
And in pursuit of those goals, the Giants haven’t acted charitably toward their neighbors, the Oakland Athletics, as the two continue to fight over whether the A’s can move to San Jose.
Yes, they want to move from poorer black Oakland (where blacks are the largest racial group) to richer San Jose (mostly white/asian). For crying out loud, they have won 2 straight division titles, are in st place right now, and are 27th in average attendance in 2014!
I just don’t know how you can blame a team in that situation.
Ughh. I screwed up this comment.
Let’s see:
1. Braves move to the suburbs is a white flight.
2. You can tell they are racist look at their mascot, war chant, and everything.
3. Giants are awesome because they didn’t go to a white area…. like what, Pebble Beach? Napa?
What a useless, disjointed article. If you want to talk about the Braves move and the possible racial motive/disparate impact, then stick to that. But what the heck does the Braves’ admittedly racially offensive mascot, name, and practice have to do with flight from the inner cities? And then the useless section about the Giants and their move, which is utterly irrelevant. Wendy Thurm is the worst Fangraphs writer without question.
I think you’re in the minority on that opinion Mr. Asten, but I fully support your right to hold it and express it.
So it takes a full article for her to explain that:
– she doesn’t like the South
– she is democrat and like all democrats she knows is good what is bad; she has definitive ideas on how people should think about Native Americans and this Tomahawk chop.
– as a Giants fan she has to explain that the Giants are from the good side of the history and the Braves are not
We are here to read about baseball, not about politics …
I am fairly confident that you came into this article with some pre-existing biases.
and so did Wendy, which is the point. lets talk baseball not bullshit
There’s a few things here that I’d like to comment on, and I think give me some license in analyzing what’s going on here. I think this really all boils down to how poorly attended most Braves games are, and attempts to fix it, but first, lets look at community development and its role in revenue generation.
The first thing is that I’m primarily a researcher in analytical marketing. The findings in the field are pretty equivocal on what we call Corporate Social Responsibility, which marketing like that used above broadly falls under. I tend to think it’s more useful the more the action aligns with identity salience and relevance, but in general, you don’t exactly see a comprehensive gain in revenue with an increase in socially responsible marketing, which is the baseline review finding in the field. Indeed, you only really find defenders of CSR from the behavioral side- the Empirical/theoretical econometric guys think it’s not really worth doing. I think it’s important to reach out to minority communities, particularly when it’s a potentially significant or underexplored market, under the aegis of community development, but to think that it’s going to directly financially benefit your product/team/service more than the cost of resources put into other things is naive.
However, personally, I’d say The Braves have done a great job marketing to the urban community and developing ties to the surrounding area, and this move has little to do with the relationship to the people of Atlanta as it does to the City Government of Atlanta. You’re never going to get good data on community actions, because more often than not, that kind of marketing and engagement never shows up in the balance sheet.
In addition, I think, perhaps, you may be overstepping your bounds in saying the Braves have done a poor job attempting to develop the area around the stadium. The Braves have been proposing improvements to the area since they moved in, but the city saw fit to keep them as parking lots (because of risk aversion, in my eyes- they were a more certain revenue stream than mixed use development). It’s not even a slightly charming area, lacks access to public transportation, city amenities, and other necessary goods. Pac Bell had access to all three and a development plan in place when they laid the foundations.
Furthermore, you’re going to have to do better than “Many Native Americans object” to the tomahawk chop. I have lay beliefs about how stupid and racist the damn thing is (get rid of it. Braves is fine, Chop is not, and that’s admittedly idiosyncratic, but so are your criteria), but they get clearance from tribes to use it. Is that ok? I dunno, but it’s definitely legal and generally within the bounds of “well I guess if they got permission,” which are the best standards we have.
Another thing, and one that makes a big difference personally for those of us who are Braves fans, I think one thing that’s missed here is how regional the Braves are as a team. Their home market basically covers a large geographical range in a way that other examples simply don’t. For me, placed where I am, the location of the new stadium cuts at least an hour and probably 2 off of commute time anywhere from north or West of Atlanta. For a team whose market is so regional, and who is going to be highly dependent of revenue from a stadium for most revenue growth in the next decade or so due to a poor television deal, decreasing commute hassle is a big deal. It will probably lead to a more diverse fan base, in fact. Indeed, if current trends hold, the area around the new stadium will probably be more ethnically and economically diverse in Means and Medians than ITP.
The final thing is that liberty media is circulating some marketing info about their season ticket holders that REALLY brings this move into context. The move to the NE part of Cobb county moves them within a half hour of 75% of their season ticket holders, where they only serve about 25% of them now. That’s not a small difference. They are essentially moving to the heart of their market, which is all too logical. It’s not about who CAN and CANNOT buy tickets. That’s basically a dichtotomous variable of which there are more than enough Atliens who can but do not. The thing is, for one reason or another, people who want to go to Braves games live in Cobb moreso than they do downtown Atlanta, and the Braves think they better serve themselves and their shareholders (whom they have a fiduciary duty to through Liberty Media) by shifting emphasis to a more fertile market.
Most of the conversation so far about the Braves moving has seemed like Urban ITPers whinging about a team moving whose games they never went to. Stephen Godfrey and Spencer Hall over at SB nation seem to lie on opposite sides of this debate, and the thing is, Spencer hates the hell out of baseball, but they’ve both been articulate in arguing for and against the move. The general feeling seems to be “dammit why are they moving, not that I ever went to more than 3 or 4 games in a year.” Had they wanted to go, Atlanta residents certainly have the market power in place to fill that stadium every day of the year.
good god this is an essay. Sorry. I apologize for any serious grammatical errors.
Yes. But very helpful, informed and locally based. Thank you very much for it.
Can we replace Wendy’s article with this? Amazing what a little research can turn up.
Thank you Joe. I appreciate the information and expertise you bring to bear on these issues, in general, and relating to Atlanta in particular.
Didn’t Lew Wolff essentially try to pull this same move with the A’s? Sure, o.co is an old dump, but Wolff only ever had eyes for that moneyed whiteness in the South Bay.
The South Bay is not particularly white — Santa Clara County is 47% White and 32% Asian. People of Mexican descent, either US citizens or not, are about 23%. All their money is green of course, just like the A’s uniforms.
Light justification.
If the Braves have a civic obligation to be a steward of their community, then surely the A’s have the same with Oakland.
Interesting point, Cobb county is 30% black, like the South Bay is 30% Asian
47+32+23 = 102. And doesn’t include other groups who, as we see with this article, are or are not afraid to consider.
I agree that the Braves moving out of Atlanta proper is a sad situation. However, I think it is more of a symptom of declining minority participation in baseball than it will be a cause of it (though it is certainly both). My guess, and it is only a guess, is that the strongest predictor of baseball fandom is youth participation and/or exposure to baseball. Fair warning, this may be completely off topic.
In America, baseball has become the province of upper middle class suburbia, whereas it used to thrive in our cities. This is caused by a variety of factors:
1. Rising urban land costs
2. Rising urban automobile traffic
3. Alternative sports with more widely available fields/courts
4. Increased year round play of baseball in suburbia, with emphasis on weekends.
The first 2 have to do with access to suitable locations to play our great game. As the value of urban land has increased the availability of open spaces has almost certainly decreased. And the rise of car traffic makes playing in the street more unattractive in urban centers. Less opportunities to play baseball.
Number 3, in urban centers, basketball courts are much more accessible and far safer from automobile traffic. There is a lower opportunity cost associated with a pickup game of basketball than baseball.
4, upper middle class suburbia youth baseball players play much much more baseball than they ever have in the past. Year round youth baseball is for real, I grew up in the suburbs and it was not uncommon at all for my peers to play 75+ games (plus all the hours of practice) of baseball a year even before the high school level. This is a huge advantage in developing the fine motor skills unique to the sport, and to be able to participate in such a vast amount of baseball requires both a significant amount of disposable cash, AND at least one parent (or friend’s parent) to drive you to all these practices and games). Urban families have both less cash, and jobs that require working during after school hours and weekends. Urban kids can dedicate large amounts of time to basketball that they simply cannot to baseball. With tackle football, the violent nature of the sport levels the field significantly when it comes to playing time. You just can’t play year round tackle football.
Personally, I think declining African American participation in baseball is tragic, but what can we do about it? Programs like RBI baseball certainly help somewhat, but it’s hard to get individual MLB teams to invest because they can’t reap the rewards due to draft rules, a classic free rider problem. MLB, in the interest of the overall health of the game, needs to invest heavily in urban centers to increase access to baseball. If you increase urban participation in baseball, I would bet the attendance in places like Atlanta/Oakland would go up.
Yup, I don’t see why RBI isn’t 10x or 100x its current size.
Why doesn’t MLB partner with the Division I HSBUs to promote college baseball at these schools?
Many of these universities have trouble keeping up with the payroll levels of the major colleges in football and basketball. Maybe RBI can directly pay the cost of any scholarship offered to one of its grads. (BTW – MLB as a whole should fund RBI, in the best interests of the game)
Locating a sports venue in a black neighborhood is not being socially conscious, it is being fiscally and morally irresponsible. I’ve been to games at a lot of bad ballparks. Briggs in Detroit, Oakland Coliseum, Comiskey old and new, Tampa Bay, but I wouldn’t make a habit of it, which I did in other parks. Nobody else is making a habit of attending games in these parks either, no matter how well the teams play. To say this is about chasing the money is a bogus moral misdirection by progressive cretins.
Comiskey was the worst, no question. Idiotic choice for a venue. At least Oakland doesn’t want to be in Oakland.
Why is Comiskey an idiot choice for a venue?
Sorry, I meant “idiotic”.
Are we talking Comiskey, or the current home of the White Sox? Can’t comment on the first, but the second is TERRIBLE for the fact that you buy a ticket for your level, and that’s it. Talk about segregation. Want to buy a 400 level seat and take in the bullpen during warmups? Fuck off. Want to buy a 100 level seat and then nose bleed it for the fun of it. Nope. No other stadium does that – not even Wrigley, as much as they try.
As a Braves fan, I don’t like the move to Cobb County. I’m not a fan of suburban ballparks; and aside from those who live in Cobb County, the new stadium is in a worse location (even for those who live in other northern suburbs, such as Gwinnett County). The traffic is horrible in the area and public transportation access is even worse. That said, I don’t know why this is being portrayed as white flight. I know people get this image of suburbs as being extremely white, but that’s simply not the case with many of the suburbs of Atlanta. For example, one could argue that Gwinnett County is more diverse than Atlanta. As for Cobb County, sure it’s more white than Atlanta, but it’s not entirely devoid of diversity. Here is the census data for Cobb County:
White alone 66.1%
Black or African American alone 26.2%
American Indian and Alaska Native alone 0.5%
Asian alone 4.8%
Native Hawaiian 0.1%
Two or More Races 2.2%
Hispanic or Latino 12.6%
White alone, not Hispanic or Latino 55.4%
Whiter and not as diverse as Atlanta, but not as bad as being made out. And if anything, I’d image that the diversity will end up growing in Cobb County as that seems to be the trend for suburbs (at least northern suburbs). So, the idea that the Braves are moving from an urban area to suburban area because of race reasons doesn’t really seem to be the best explanation for the move. As others have pointed out, Cobb County gave them a sweetheart deal and the Braves did what other teams would and took it. Had Atlanta given a similar or better deal, I’m sure they would have taken it.
Anyway, hasn’t anyone heard of the new white flight? More young white people are moving to the cities (for example, Atlanta’s white population increased by 5% between the 2000 and 2010, while the black population fell 3% – though other races/ethnic groups also saw an increase), while suburbs are increasingly becoming less white and home to more minorities. If the trend continues, that means the Braves might be moving to an area that will become even less white and more diverse.
Beisbol, great point. If this were truly based on white flight or affluence, the Braves would have moved to Alpharetta and dealt with potentially less of a traffic nightmare. Cobb County isn’t Casper-level white.
As for the Braves’ name, I don’t think that it in itself is racist, but I do think it has a habit to lead to racist imagery and to portraying Native Americans as caricatures. You could also argue that the name is cultural appropriation. One the other hand, t tomahawk chop is something I think is racist. I don’t think most of the fans are trying to be racist, or even realize that it is racist, but it’s something that definitely should go.
Personally, I think the Braves should change their. A name that somehow ties it the region would be nice – I like when teams have names that relate to the city/region they play in.
How about the Crackers, the name of Atlanta’s previous baseball team? They could bring that back. Not many horses in Atlanta anymore, then again a team named the Braves playing in Cobb County would have made much sense 200 years ago.
Wendy, I don’t mind your take on what’s racial or not. I’m a 6-feet chap. If I dress like a NY Hooker in Gay Parade, would you accuse me of sexism?
Let’s get some real proof of EXactly which organization allowed its people (employees, associates, business partners, player selection trend) to conduct inappropriate ACTions, before we accuse people for having pure fun in life, with costumes, ethnic groups, and Americanism, shall we?
I’m not so sure the San Francisco Giants’ beat writer gets a vote on this one.
The Braves want a better ballpark. They’re getting a better ballpark. Media suggests that it’s not a great deal for taxpayers, so if that’s true, taxpayers can get upset.
If I attend Braves games and it’ll be harder for me to get to the new yard, I can get upset.
But for some guy from San Francisco to get all indignant and start playing the race card besides… maybe that stuff gets clicks on the web, but it shouldn’t. Yellow journalism at its worst.
> There’s not a hint of irony in that video, not even a recognition that the Tomahawk Chop is seen and felt
> as racially insensitive by many Native Americans
The Tomahawk Chop is not racially insensitive — it is culturally insensitive. Native Americans are a culture, not a race — just like African Americans, European Americans, Latin Americans, Asian Americans. There is only one race: the human race. We are all a part of it. Accepting that there is more than one race is the foundation of the pseudo-science of racism, which was proven wrong hundreds of years ago. Rejecting the idea that there is more than one race is the first step to healing your own racism.
The difference between Native Americans (not “red people”) and European Americans (not “white people”) is the culture they express. To suggest there is any other difference is equivalent to saying people with red hair are a different race than people with blond hair. They are not. Hair color, skin tone, eye color, facial features, body shape, whether you have freckles or not — these things do not matter. They tell you nothing about a person’s culture, intelligence, integrity, etc. Same with the measurements of the head — phrenology — which is another pseudo-science that, like racism, was proven wrong long ago.
I know that in the US, racism has been redefined to mean “negative uses of racism,” but that is a trap set by racists to perpetrate the continued survival of racism. It’s racism-lite, but it is still racism. If you embrace it, you are still putting on blinders that stop you from seeing the world as it really is. For example, you might say to a kid that she is “mixed race” when she is not. She is a mixture of her parents just like every single other human being in the world. Every single baby in the world has a mixture of his or her parent’s hair color and texture, skin tone, eye color, etc. Every single one. Because we are all the same humans.
Also, it is not just Native Americans who are offended by the Tomahawk Chop and Chief Wahoo and the Washington Redskins — lots of people from all cultures are offended. I didn’t even come to live in the United States until I was 30, and I am horrified by the fact that a multimillion dollar business would mock an entire culture, under trademark protection, especially one that is historically undervalued and oppressed within the United States (although ironically, valued elsewhere, same as African American culture.) It’s even worse when they defend their ignorant mockery by saying it is their tradition. That the 80 years of history of a baseball or football team mocking a 10,000 year old culture establishes some profoundly valuable tradition that must be protected, even as that 10,000 year old culture is marginalized by their very actions. That is the same excuse for the South Will Rise Again crowd — they place their culture of hatred and racism above the cultures they want to oppress for their own benefit.
So the title of this article should be “Culture, Community, and MLB” — the racism in the article needs to be edited out before you can address the actual issue of cultural insensitivity and imperialism that surround the Atlanta MLB team. The Atlanta MLB team did not create the term “Braves,” they did not create the Tomahawk, and they do not have a right to appropriate that culture for their amusement and financial gain. They do not have the right to represent Native American culture at all, especially not as a caricature.
Not sure anybody commenting on this site has ever attended a Braves game. Getting to and from the field is a complete unmitigated disaster and the stadium has no character or atmosphere whatsoever. They HAD to move somewhere. Staying wasn’t an option.