Two-time World Series-winning pitcher David Wells blasted Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred’s decision to move this summer’s All-Star Game to Denver from Atlanta in response to Georgia’s new election law.
“I’ve had a lot of dealings with Rob Manfred back in my playing days, and I never liked the guy,” Wells admitted on Fox News Radio’s “The Brian Kilmeade Show” Thursday. “I thought he was a bit odd. He never understood anything.”
“To me, how do you change the games, the dynamics, and hurt a city like Atlanta that really needs some income in that situation?” Wells asked. “I mean, Atlanta’s a great place to play baseball.”
The law, signed by Gov. Brian Kemp, prohibits electioneering in close proximity to polls, expands some weekend early voting opportunities, and strengthens personal identification requirements for Georgians seeking absentee ballots.
President Biden blasted the new law as “Jim Crow on steroids,” while Manfred announced last week that moving the Midsummer Classic out of Atlanta was “the best way to demonstrate our values as a sport.”
In response, Wells recalled playing minor league baseball in Kinston, North Carolina, which he described as a “segregated town.”
“Black guys on the team lived in one part of town, we lived on the other. I’ve never seen anything like that. I didn’t know. I didn’t understand it, and it was weird because I didn’t think it was fair,” he said. “You know, we’re all created equal … The African Americans went through some crazy stuff in their time, and I feel really bad. And today, what we have now, we’re all equal. So why can’t we be treated equal instead of having the race card?”
Wells added that the Biden administration “has no idea what they’re doing, and if it doesn’t fit their narrative, you know, it’s going to be crazy.
“I don’t watch baseball anymore, Brian,” he went on. “I refuse to watch it because of this. I don’t want no part of it, and this was my life … For me not to want to go to a baseball game or even watch, it kills me, because I don’t put up with that kind of crap, and I don’t condone it.”
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Wells, a three-time All-Star who won championships with the Toronto Blue Jays in 1992 and the New York Yankees in 1998, added that if he were playing today, he would refuse to wear Nike uniforms due to the company’s support for former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick.
“It’s [Kneeling for the national anthem is] disrespecting our flag, it’s disrespecting our military guys, and I don’t stand for it,” he said. “I grew up in San Diego, a military town, so to me, Nike — I took everything I had Nike, threw it in the trash. I got rid of it all. I don’t want it, I don’t condone these types of things … If I was playing right now, Brian, I would not wear that Nike. I would rip it off. I would cut a hole in my jersey, and not have Nike on anything, and if I got suspended, so be it.”
