Paul Kengor: Boycotting baseball

“I couldn’t agree more. At least there’s golf and the NHL has mostly been neutral.”

So said Bill, a Trib reader reacting to my previous column on Major League Baseball yanking the All-Star Game out of Atlanta for political reasons — effectively a partisan-ideological decision by MLB commissioner Rob Manfred.

In response to Manfred’s move, I stated that I’ve decided not to watch a game this season, on TV or at the ballpark. It pains me, because I love baseball, but Manfred has left no other choice to myself and countless fans. We can’t allow ourselves to be patsies and pawns to people who want to politicize everything — including America’s national pastime — and who cancel people they disagree with. In this case, canceling an entire city and state. Enough is enough. This has to stop.

Another Trib reader, Ray, agreed: “Great article and right on the money,” he emailed me. “Manfred put MLB in the tank, as their revenues will follow the NFL’s, and (yet) he still has his job.”

He does indeed, even as MLB is feeling a backlash from Manfred’s politicization of baseball. The emails from Bill and Ray weren’t the only ones I received. Baseball fans everywhere are outraged.

Sports fans are, of course, an eccentric breed. Look at Steelers fans. Our dedication borders on religious devotion, with all sorts of kooky rituals. When the Steelers have a really big game, I bring out the sacred objects and carefully arrange them under the TV for maximum mystical effect: old Iron City beer cans, my Jack Lambert jersey, a Big Ben T-shirt from the 2005 Super Bowl season, and, of course, the holy of holies — an official Myron Cope Terrible Towel. It’s a Steelers equivalent of grabbing the Holy Water, the Rosary beads and a crucifix.

We goofy sports fans can also hold grudges.

Back in the 1990s, I wrote a letter (and a column) pleading with Pitt Chancellor Mark Nordenberg not to tear down Pitt Stadium. It would be like taking a wrecking ball to a cathedral. I swore I would never again attend a Pitt football game if Nordenberg proceeded with plans. He did, and I’ve never attended a Pitt game at Heinz Field (clearly countless thousands have joined me).

I consider it the worst decision ever made by the University of Pittsburgh.

Speaking of awful sports decisions, when Pirates GM Neal Huntington traded Neil Walker to the Mets in 2015, without even asking Walker to consider moving to first base (Walker disclosed that on the morning show of Pittsburgh’s “The Fan” immediately after he was shipped to New York), I swore I would never attend another Pirates game until Walker was brought back or Huntington left. It was a tough decision, but I stuck to my guns (or grudges).

Pittsburgh fans will laugh at my sports silliness. It’s deserved. But what MLB’s Rob Manfred did with the All-Star Game is no laughing matter. Baseball fans are truly outraged. This effective economic boycott of a city and its people by Manfred, based on ill-informed and ill-advised partisan political thinking, cannot be laughed off. Fans like me are responding with boycotts of our own.

Will MLB listen to us?