Baseball takes a stand: Is the Beijing Winter Olympics next?

Australia’s Peter Norman, Tommie Smith and John Carlos at the 1968 Olympics

Sometimes people surprise you. Who would have thought that Major League Baseball, its owners and commissioner, would make a strong political statement and do so without equivocation?

Last week MLB pulled its July 13 All Star Game and 2021 Draft from Atlanta in response to changes in Georgia’s voting laws, changes that many see as disproportionately affecting black and minority communities.

Georgia’s new laws were passed 12 days ago, and they brought a raft of new restrictions for elections in the state. These changes came about because many Republicans in Georgia refused to accept the veracity of last November’s presidential election, believing instead that the election was stolen. Multiple audits of Georgia’s vote reaffirmed the result.

After signing off on the new law, the state governor Brian Kemp said “the aim was to make it easier to vote, harder to cheat”. Not everyone buys that. “The most pernicious thing,” President Joe Biden said in a reference to Georgia’s Voting Law.

Then, up stepped MLB. “MLB fundamentally supports voting rights for all Americans and opposes restrictions to the ballot box. Fair access to voting continues to have our game’s unwavering support,” commissioner Rob Manfred said. Then came the announcement that Georgia would not be allowed to host the 2021 All Star Game and Draft.

Most MLB owners are conservative in their politics and donate to the Republican Party. Black players in MLB account for only 8 per cent of team rosters and of the main sports in the US, baseball may be considered the least likely to be offended by these law changes. Their willingness to take a position is heartening.

And important. Arizona, Florida and Texas are preparing similar changes to their voting laws. With MLB showing the way, leaders in other sports have decisions to make. What is certain is that sport can make a difference. That much was clear from the fallout to Colin Kaepernick’s anthem protests at NFL games that began in 2016.

At first the team owners and the NFL commissioner, Roger Goodell, were unsure how to respond but seemed to consider their first priority was to halt the slide in TV ratings, which was, in part, attributable to viewers believing that Kaepernick and his peers were being disrespectful to the national anthem and flag. The league forbade players to kneel, but allowed those wanting to protest to stay in the changing room.

That policy came into existence in May 2018 and had to be repealed two months later. The players couldn’t be railroaded into doing the NFL’s bidding. Goodell now says that the mistake was in not aligning with Kaepernick from day one.

I cheered when Kaepernick knelt, as I did at the MLB’s decision. Same reaction that I had as a 13-year-old watching the 1968 Olympics from Mexico City. That protest from the US sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos was the moment of the Games, greater in impact than even Bob Beamon’s extraordinary leap in the long jump.

When Smith and Carlos raised their gloved and clenched fists to protest against racial injustice and demand radical change, the world wasn’t ready. The Olympic stadium went quiet, then came a rising hum of disapproval and racists shouts. The two athletes were rushed from the stadium, suspended by the US Olympic Committee and kicked out of the Olympic village.

Smith had won the gold medal in that 200m final, Carlos the bronze. Dividing them in the race and beside them on the podium was the Australian Peter Norman. Waiting to make their podium protest, Carlos realised he’d forgotten to bring the black gloves he’d intended to wear. Norman suggested they each wear one glove, which is what they did.

Norman wanted to support their protest and they suggested he wear the Olympic Project For Human Rights badge on his tracksuit top, as they were doing. Ironically Norman would suffer far more for making his stand than the Americans. He was easily good enough to make the team for the 1972 Olympics in Munich, but Australia refused to pick him.

No good ever came from his silver medal. Eventually he used it as a door stop. Norman died in 2006. Smith and Carlos, who had kept in touch with him, were pallbearers at his funeral. Six years after his death, the Australian government apologised for the treatment Norman had received in his home country.

At this point there may be some relief on your part that these vexatious collisions between sport and politics and injustice aren’t something that need overly concern us. Not true. Next February the Winter Olympics are scheduled to take place in Beijing and there are reasons for asking if they should do so with our support.

Not least the treatment of the Uighur people in Xinjiang where at least one million men and women have been sent for “re-education”. Canada’s parliament has concluded that China’s treatment of the Uighurs constituted genocide and pressed for the Games to be taken from Beijing.

Such talk is cheap, especially when Canada’s government decided its national Olympic committee could decide whether the Canada team take part. The committee said a boycott wasn’t the answer. It would, wouldn’t it? “The interests of all Canadians,” it said, “and the global community, are advanced through competing and celebrating great Canadian performances and values on the Olympic and Paralympic stage.”

Are Uighurs not part of the global community?

In the UK, the foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, spoke in the autumn about China’s hosting of the Olympics. He said his instinct was “to separate sport from diplomacy and politics but there comes a point where it is not possible”. How many Uighurs need to be forcibly detained for that point to be reached?

Whether they should or should not, the Games will happen in Beijing. That’s for sure. The best result for the rest of us will be if some athletes show up with the conviction of Smith, Carlos and Norman.

The Sunday Times