By Becket Adams
Sunday, June 21, 2026
You’ve got to hand it to Major League Baseball: Like
sports journalism, it has an uncanny ability to upset everyone.
The San Francisco Giants held a Pride Night recently in
which players were expected to wear ballcaps featuring the team’s logo in the
colors of the current rainbow pride flag, which includes the colors of the
trans movement. Because who doesn’t, over some peanuts and Cracker Jacks, want
to pay respects to a hypersexual political entity that encourages gender dysmorphia in children?
As it so happened, four Giants players were none too keen
to honor the rainbow mafia.
So, in silent protest, three players affixed to their
ballcaps the scriptural reference “Genesis 9:12–16,” which refers to the
rainbow as the symbol of God’s covenant with humanity. A fourth player, Sam
Hentges, simply wore his normal season hat.
What happened next was entirely predictable: The players
were condemned as villains, particularly in the sports press, for refusing to wear
the ribbon — er, for “defacing”
and “desecrating” the pride flag.
(It’s worth noting that in much of the backlash and media
coverage, Sam Hentges gets lumped with the three pitchers who sported the
Genesis verses. So, the next time that someone tells you the pride-themed gear
was purely optional and the Christian ballplayers simply chose to make a
spectacle of themselves, remember Hentges — who wore his standard season cap
and is still drawing heat for it.)
What’s amusing about this situation is that it wasn’t so
long ago that sports journalism was positively delighted by a
not-quite-so-silent sports protest, and in the same city, no less.
Recall the Colin Kaepernick phenomenon, in which the
mid-tier NFL quarterback was declared a civil rights hero for his refusal to
stand for the national anthem (no one has yet explained how kneeling before the
flag is an act of defiance rather than reverence, but we’re long past that
point). It was bold! It was truth-telling! Against the world, this quarterback,
this man who had only middling success in the league, this sudden international
icon was willing to say: No, I can’t honor my country, not like this.
I don’t have to quote you the fawning coverage. You
likely remember it all too well, including when Kaepernick won Sports
Illustrated’s Muhammad Ali Legacy Award in 2017, as presented by Beyoncé,
or when he won GQ’s Citizen of the Year award.
Now compare the handling of that conspicuous protest in
opposition to America, its history, the police, and/or violence to a handful of
ballplayers’ quietly putting scriptural verses on their caps in protest of a
political movement representing only 4.5 percent of the U.S. population.
It’s good to stand up – or kneel – for your
principles. Oh, wait! Not like that!
Writing in the New York Times, senior sportswriter Grant Brisbee
condemned the silent protest as a “tone-deaf response to what should have been
a moment for community unity.”
“They made the night about ‘us versus them,’” he fumed.
“That’s the only thing they could see.”
For good measure, Brisbee also included a little
emotional blackmail, claiming that unless everyone affirms and supports events
such as Pride Night, “LGBTQIA+ individuals are much more likely to be told that
they are without value. They are likelier to be abused, to self-harm, to get
kicked out of their homes, to be bullied, to be assaulted.”
He concluded his column by demanding the Giants
ballplayers “do better.” And just in case the subtlety of his demand was
missed, he demanded a second time in the same article that the ballplayers “do
better.”
Elsewhere, San Francisco Chronicle sports columnist Ann Killion
published an article titled, “Giants pitchers alienate fans and San Francisco
by defacing Pride hats.”
“Some of the snowflakes on the Giants, the pitching staff
specifically, decided to say a giant F-you to a good chunk of their fan base,”
she wrote. “On a night that was supposed to be about inclusion, they hijacked
the event for their own purposes. In the name of Christianity, they took a
decidedly un-Christian stance of exclusion and judgment.”
To prove that everyone is indeed upset, she authored a
follow-up column in which she quoted purported fans from the comment section
and her email inbox, including “Deborah,” who said, “You signed a contract to
play baseball in a city that is known to be very open and accepting of all
people, and then you decide that your faith is more important. That, my friend,
is being a big fat hypocrite.”
You will not be surprised to learn that both Killion (“I
support his right to protest, which was a very intentional act.”) and
Brisbee (“Kaepernick was trying to start conversations that would never
have happened before. And he did it.”) had very different reactions to the
Kaepernick protests.
For an even greater lack of imagination and creativity,
we turn to the Associated Press, which went with the ultra-lazy
“pouncing” model: “MLB warned players about altering Pride Night caps, and
Republicans took notice.”
The report reads: “Efforts by Major League Baseball teams
to promote LGBTQ+ inclusivity during Pride Month haven’t been embraced with
open arms by some of its rank-and-file players, and the league’s response is
prompting criticism from prominent Republican politicians.”
This brings us to the league itself, which has managed
somehow to upset everyone.
Following the quiet protest last week, the MLB put the
“offending” Giants players on notice, saying in a statement, “The writing on
the cap violates our rules, and consistent with normal practice, we have warned
the players about future violations.”
The league had to run that one back, though, issuing a
clarifying statement that said, “To be clear, this routine verbal warning not
to wear the hat in future games is not disciplinary and had absolutely nothing
to do with the content of the message.”
It added, “We respect players’ right to free expression.
However, writing of any kind, with any message, is prohibited per Major League
Baseball’s uniform regulations.”
The Giants ballclub, meanwhile, attempted to walk the
fine line of placating the mob while not attacking its players directly, saying
in a statement, “We also respect that individuals may make personal choices
about participating in team activations. We understand that the choices by
individual players have caused pain and anger to many in the LGBTQ+ community
and we are sorry for that.”
Unsurprisingly, the statements by baseball officials have
placated no one and angered everyone.
On the right, Senator Josh Hawley has already suggested
hauling MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred before Congress to discuss potential
antitrust violations by the league, which currently enjoys an antitrust
exemption. As the senator explained, if the league is going to threaten players
for putting scriptural verses on their hats while also allowing league teams to
put on gay-pride nights, then perhaps lawmakers will take a good, hard look at
that privilege.
The senator has so far demanded the league provide his
office, and then potentially the Senate Judiciary Committee, with examples
dating back to 2020 of when it warned, fined, or disciplined players for
violations of uniform regulations. Hawley has also requested records from when
the league allowed its uniform regulations to be relaxed for the “Black Lives
Matter” and “United for Change” causes.
As for some self-described gay Giants fans, they’re
evidently not going to be happy until the offenders are fired or severely
punished beyond a mere reprimand (as is generally the demand for these sorts of
things).
“The Giants’ milquetoast response about ‘pain and anger’
just doesn’t cut it,” reads a letter from a fan published and promoted by Outsports. “You’re making an excuse for the players’
homophobia. It’s unacceptable.”
It added, “I’d like to know what you plan to do to
recover from this embarrassing situation. The Giants should host a press
conference and community forum to discuss what actions they will take moving
forward.”
Well done, MLB leadership. You fed the mob, and now it’s
hungry for more. And sports journalism as an institution is all too happy to
lead it.
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