It felt like a quintessentially Atlanta moment.
As Atlanta mayoral front-runner Felicia Moore prepared to take the stage to celebrate her spot in the Nov. 30 runoff, the Atlanta Braves were on the cusp of a World Series victory.
While Moore gave her victory speech – she led the 14-candidate race by a wide margin – her supporters furtively glanced at a nearby flat-screen TV to watch closer Will Smith prepare to dispatch the Astros in the bottom of the ninth to win their first championship since 1995.
“We’re going to celebrate the Braves,” Moore said, wrapping up her remarks, “and we’re going to get back work in the morning.”
It was a fitting way to cap a baseball season that had collided with Georgia politics. Back in April, Major League Baseball outraged Democrats and Republicans by pulling the All-Star game out of Georgia in April in protest of the state’s new election law.
Then the league was forced to eat crow by hosting its premier event – three games of the World Series – in a state it snubbed a few months earlier. Former President Donald Trump, who earlier this year called on supporters to boycott the sport, highlighted the clash by attending Saturday’s game at Truist Park.
Credit: TNS
Credit: TNS
The team’s 7-0 victory against the hated Astros on Tuesday was a happier occasion for the Atlanta mayoral candidates, though it meant the outcome of the election would inevitably be overshadowed by the team’s triumph.
Councilman Andre Dickens, who appeared to land the second runoff spot, held his watch party at the rooftop of the Atrium, which was lit by the glow of TVs showing the game.
And the crowd gathered at former Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed’s event at a downtown Atlanta hotel drifted to an upstairs bar to catch the game.
When a deafening roar erupted around 10:30 p.m., supporters downstairs thought Reed must have pulled ahead in the latest vote count. Instead, the crowd was cheering a Freddie Freeman home run.
Those dispatched to lonelier venues found other ways to take in the game. Justin Gray of Channel 2 Action News caught the moment on his laptop from a staid warehouse where Fulton County election officials were tallying ballots.
Back at Moore’s election watch party at the Marriott Marquis, the crowd converged on the lone TV playing the game as soon as the mayoral contender finished her speech. And when Freeman gloved the final out and his teammates mobbed the field, a smaller version of that joyous outburst unfolded at Moore’s party.
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