'All Strikes & No Balls' billboard in NYC slams MLB's decision on all-star game

The prominent small business group Job Creators Network is placing a billboard in Manhattan demanding Major League Baseball return its all-star game to Atlanta, saying the decision to move the event unnecessarily hurt black small businesses and amounted to "all strikes & no balls."

The billboard, set to go up Monday near MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred's office, urges viewers to go to a Web site called MLBfail.com where Job Creators Network lays out the economic consequences of the decision to protest Georgia's new election integrity law by moving the all-star game to Colorado.

"Hey Rob, All Strikes & No Balls," the billboard reads. "MLB all-star pullout cost Georgia $100,000,000. Hurting mostly minority-owned small businesses... Move it Back NOW."

A spokesman for MLB did not immediately return a call Saturday seeking comment.

Alfredo Ortiz, president and CEO of Job Creators Network, said the billboard was designed to highlight that professional baseball's decision hurt the very minority community it claimed t be helping.

"MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred’s $100 million dollar slap in the face to minority-owned businesses deserves a billboard of a proportionate size," he said. "Small, minority-owned businesses in Georgia have been struggling to get by in the aftermath of the coronavirus pandemic, and moving the MLB’s All Star game is pulling the rug right out from underneath them.

"And for what? To virtue signal against a law that closer aligns Georgia voting rules with other states? Commissioner Manfred needs to stand up to the woke mob and step up for the small businesses of Atlanta by moving the game back to Georgia."