HOUSTON—Sometime in the next week or so, Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred will hand off the World Series championship trophy in one of the two cities in America in which he might be most despised. 

One is Houston, the site of Tuesday night’s Game 1, where Manfred is seen as a villain over his handling of the sign-stealing scandal that tarnished the Astros’ title in 2017 and stained their players’ legacies. Many fans here believe Manfred scapegoated the Astros for committing a crime that was widespread at the...

HOUSTON—Sometime in the next week or so, Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred will hand off the World Series championship trophy in one of the two cities in America in which he might be most despised. 

One is Houston, the site of Tuesday night’s Game 1, where Manfred is seen as a villain over his handling of the sign-stealing scandal that tarnished the Astros’ title in 2017 and stained their players’ legacies. Many fans here believe Manfred scapegoated the Astros for committing a crime that was widespread at the time and unfairly transformed them into the most hated franchise in professional sports.

The other is Atlanta, where Manfred sparked a political firestorm by pulling the All-Star Game in response to Georgia’s new voting law. The move, which the Braves publicly opposed, enraged some state officials and alienated a portion of fans, who are now celebrating even more important games coming to town.

However it shakes out, it is a hellish proposition for Manfred. Sports commissioners frequently hear boos. (Just ask Roger Goodell how much he enjoys showing his face in New England.) But the vitriol Manfred will face at the end of this World Series will be particularly vicious, and coming from all directions—whatever he does now. 

Manfred is pinned between liberal and conservative American politics in part because MLB began to respond to calls to act on social issues last year. It left the commissioner simultaneously under pressure to take those stances to their logical conclusion, at the same time he is still facing resentment from people aggrieved at the positions.

A ‘Fire Manfred’ umbrella is seen in the stands during a game between the Houston Astros and the Los Angeles Angels.

Photo: Harry How/Getty Images

“We always have tried to be apolitical,” Manfred said Tuesday, speaking on the field at Minute Maid Park before Game 1 of the World Series. “Obviously there was a notable exception this year. I think our desire is to try to avoid another exception to that general rule.”

If the series ends in Atlanta, Manfred will deliver baseball’s highest honor at the ballpark that he deprived of hosting the All-Star Game. At the time, Manfred said relocating the game was “the best way to demonstrate our values as a sport.” The Braves responded by saying they were “deeply disappointed” and noted that moving the game was “neither our decision, nor our recommendation.” 

“Unfortunately, businesses, employees and fans in Georgia are the victims of this decision,” the Braves said.

To Manfred, relocating the All-Star Game had nothing to do with the Braves or the people of Georgia but was rather a move to stave off further controversy, people familiar with the matter said. MLB worried about the possibility of players boycotting the game—or having to answer questions about their status for months leading up to it. Ultimately, MLB knew that no matter what it did with the All-Star Game, people would be angry. Manfred determined moving it to Denver was the better option.

Certainly, some people in Georgia who are against the voting law supported Manfred. Republican politicians in the state, however, are viewing the Braves advancing to the World Series and as some sort of karmic payback. “It’s really ridiculous to inject politics into sports and then to baseball, but that’s what they did,” Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp said on “Fox & Friends” on Monday.

“Atlanta played great down the stretch, did a tremendous job in the playoffs,” Manfred said. “They earned their right to the World Series, and we’re looking forward to being back in Atlanta.”

Astros fans feel like victims, too, and blame Manfred for undermining what should have been the proudest moment in the history of the franchise. In January 2020, Manfred suspended then-manager A.J. Hinch and then-general manager Jeff Luhnow for their involvement in the Astros’ scheme. (They were both fired that same day, though Hinch has since resurfaced as the manager for the Detroit Tigers.) Manfred also docked Houston’s first- and second-round picks in the 2020 and 2021 drafts and fined the team $5 million.

Whether they should be mad at Manfred is another story. In spite of everything, no players were punished for their roles in the scheme. In the two seasons since the revelation of the scandal, the Astros advanced to the American League Championship Series and now the World Series. They’re doing just fine.

But to some in Houston, the Astros were singled out for something other teams were already doing. In 2017, the same year the Astros were banging on a trash can in the dugout to relay their illicitly obtained signs to batters, the Boston Red Sox were caught illegally using an Apple Watch for the same purpose. Last week, Oakland Athletics pitcher Chris Bassitt appeared on a Jomboy Media podcast and said the Astros were “the guinea pig of it to clean the whole entire league up, but there was a lot going on.” 

Yet for the rest of time, the Astros will be viewed as the face of illegal sign-stealing and for that, Manfred is a public enemy in Houston. The fans will be sure to remind him of how they feel about him if the World Series ends at Minute Maid Park.

MLB commissioner Rob Manfred presents Houston Astros owner Jim Crane with the Commissioner’s Trophy after the 2017 World Series.

Photo: richard mackson/Reuters

“I think the Astros winning would be a great accomplishment for the Astros,” Manfred said. “People are going to make up their own minds about what it means.”

Those aren’t even all of Manfred’s problems with either team. In Atlanta, which will host Games 3, 4 and 5 starting on Friday, MLB will have to face another hot-button issue: Native American iconography in sports. 

Throughout games at Truist Park, fans frequently perform the “tomahawk chop” chant, which some consider to be racially offensive. During the chant, a recorded drumbeat blares over the stadium’s PA system while a digital tomahawk rhythmically chops on the scoreboard. 

It comes at a time where other teams around sports, including baseball, have backed away from their Native American mascots and nicknames. Last year, Cleveland’s baseball team announced it would drop the name “Indians” and said in July that it would go by the “Guardians” starting next season.

In Atlanta, however, the “chop” lives on and will serve as the soundtrack on Fox for a national television audience later this week. The Braves had indicated last year that they would reconsider encouraging the gesture, while reaffirming their commitment to keeping their name. 

They have removed a “Chop On” sign outside their ballpark and eliminated the music that had accompanied the chant. That change came following collaboration with the team’s Native American Working Group, an official said. But mostly they have focused on supporting the promotion of Native American heritage, rather than trying to stamp out the chop.

“The Native American community in that region is fully supportive of the Braves program, including the chop,” Manfred said. “For me, that’s kind of the end of the story.” 

After the All-Star fight, the issue is even more loaded. While praising the Braves in a tweet over the weekend, Georgia’s governor Kemp also included the phrase “Chop On.”

Should the series return to Houston in early November, meanwhile, Manfred will find himself in a state that will be under a newly bright public spotlight over its own explosive law. Texas recently passed a measure that effectively bans abortion after about six weeks of pregnancy, one that the Supreme Court will weigh on Nov. 1—one day before Game 6 would be played in Houston. 

Write to Jared Diamond at jared.diamond@wsj.com and Louise Radnofsky at louise.radnofsky@wsj.com