Nightmares, defined as disturbing dreams associated with negative feelings, such as anxiety or fear. We’ve all experienced them at one time or another.

Personally, despite not hitting the sack until well after midnight on those evenings last month spent watching the televised team celebrations of the American and National League champions headed to the World Series, I slept quite soundly. Taking a cue from all those sports betting commercials being aired on the baseball telecasts, the odds may be better than even money that nightmares may have popped into the head of MLB commissioner Rob Manfred as those World Series opponents became known.

The 1992 movie A League of Their Own may be best remembered by the famous line delivered by Tom Hanks when he said, “there’s no crying in baseball.” There have been many other memorable quotes in other baseball movies, but no one has ever said there are no politics in baseball. Sadly, as we have recently found out, that is not the case.

It is strange how things work out sometimes. This year’s World Series featured teams from the two cities that commissioner Manfred and the MLB office despise the most; the Atlanta Braves and the Houston Astros. The Braves have been one of the game’s cornerstone franchises that gained fans across the nation when their games began being aired on Ted Turner’s television network in 1974. Although this is their first appearance in the World Series since 1999, at one point, they had won 12 straight divisional titles.

The Astros, founded as an expansion team in 1962, spent their first 51 seasons in the National League before being asked by MLB to switch to the American League in 2013. They’ve won 4 divisional titles and have appeared in three of the past five World Series.

But ahh, here’s the rub, perhaps causing commissioner Manfred sleepless nights.

Manfred was opposed to the actions of the Georgia state legislature earlier this year in revising the state’s voter registration laws. While the Braves had nothing to do with the new law’s passage, Manfred expressed his displeasure in a most political way by announcing MLB was pulling its long-promised 2021 All-Star game out of Atlanta and moving it to Denver. His expressed rationale, “I have decided that the best way to demonstrate our values as a sport is by relocating this year’s All-Star game and MLB draft.”

In doing so, he reneged on his word and years of financial undertakings and planning by so many Georgians.

At the time, the Braves responded, “The Atlanta Braves are deeply disappointed by the decision of Major League Baseball to move the 2021 All-Star game. This was neither our decision nor our recommendation, and we are saddened that fans will not be able to see this event in our city.”

Now, six months later, MLB’s most important showcase, the World Series, is being played in that same Georgia city that Manfred pulled the rug out from under in May. The Georgia law is still in place. The Braves are still playing in the same stadium that was set to host the All-Star game. I wonder if he ever entertained thoughts about moving the World Series?

Under completely different circumstances, Houston became Manfred’s and MLB’s whipping boy two years ago when it surfaced that the team used an elaborate and highly unethical scheme to steal opponent’s signals and relay them to their batters during their 2017 World Series championship season. Those actions were uncalled for and outside the true spirit of competition. MLB took punitive actions. Jobs were lost, and the Astros became the villains of the sport. They remain baseball’s most hated team today, while only a handful of players from the 2017 team remain on their roster.

As the clock approached midnight on that October 23rd Braves’ victory over the Dodgers on that very field that was denied the All-Star game and in the city where Hank Aaron became a hero and legend, it was apparent how sports can be such a positive force in bringing people together. Blacks, whites, Latinos hugged each other, celebrating what they had accomplished together. Braves manager Brian Snitker, who decades earlier was recommended for a job with the team by none other than Hank Aaron himself, held a young grandson wearing a Braves jersey with his name, Hank, on his back.

Can you imagine what Manfred’s thoughts might have been at that moment, thinking about the reality that he will have to be standing on the field in Atlanta or Houston to give one of those teams the Commissioner’s Trophy presented each year to the World Series champion? Keep those nightmares coming and a good set of earplugs handy. The boos may be deafening.

This World Series didn’t need the protesting of the woke generation. Its players have been of all creeds and colors. The teams’ two managers, the Braves Snitker (65) and the Astros Dusty Baker (72), are the oldest duo to have ever managed in the World Series. Houston’s fans wear space suit get-ups. Braves’ fans (yes, they are stilled called and cheered as the Braves) serenade their team with the chant and chop.

It could be somewhere those associated with the Cleveland Guardians, and the Washington Football Team may be dreaming of the day when their team will be playing for a championship. Unlike Manfred’s recent nocturnal thoughts, those won’t be nightmares.