Protesters ask MLB to move All-Star game from Arizona

MLB protest
Protestors demonstrate outside a meeting of Major League Baseball owners in downtown Minneapolis Wednesday, August 11, 2010. The protest crowd was asking that the MLB change the location of its All-Star game because of Arizona's controversial immigration law.
MPR Photo/Rupa Shenoy

Protestors rallied Wednesday outside a meeting of Major League Baseball owners in downtown Minneapolis.

The group of about 100 demonstrators wants the MLB to move the 2011 All-Star game out of Arizona because of an illegal immigration crackdown in that state.

Minneapolis police say five of the protesters were arrested for trespassing while trying to deliver stacks of petitions gathered from across the country to the MLB owners.

Nigar Arevalo of the Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee said the MLB shouldn't support Arizona's law.

"We want to send a clear message to them that we support to move the game out of Arizona because of the recent racist law SB 1070," Arevalo said. "So this will represent a threat to people, undocumented people, (and) people of color if they do the all star game in Arizona."

Major League Baseball representatives didn't immediately return calls for comment.

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