MLB warns San Francisco Giants players after anti-LGBTQ protest on "Pride Night"
Christian pitchers violated uniform rules by writing Bible verses on their caps to push back against the team's celebration of LGBTQ people
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A group of Christian athletes on the San Francisco Giants pushed back against the team’s “Pride Night” festivities by writing anti-LGBTQ Bible verses on their caps, a move that violates baseball’s rules. They’re now acting like they’re the real victims in all this.
Last week, the Giants celebrated Pride Night with special rainbow-colored caps for team members—they apparently didn’t have to wear them if they didn’t want to—and a message promoting resources to help LGBTQ people and their loved ones.
It’s not a controversial message in any way… unless you’re a conservative Christian who thinks acknowledging and helping LGBTQ people amounts to a sin.
That was the case for Giants starting pitcher Landen Roupp, who wrote “Gen 9:12-16” on his cap… and relievers JT Brubaker and Ryan Walker, who imitated him… and another pitcher, Sam Hentges, who refused to wear the cap entirely.
You’d be forgiven for not noticing the message given that Roupp gave up four runs in under five innings and left the game before taking the official loss. But those verses are ones in which God says the rainbow is a sign of his covenant with the planet—after he murders nearly everyone on it. In other words, Roupp was arguing that God owns the rainbow, not LGBTQ people. As if a message of unity and inclusion violates his religion.
It’s bad enough that these pitchers wanted to make it clear they’re not on board with celebrating LGBTQ people, but to do it in San Francisco? Who do they think comes to the games?! It’s also not like they care about sending this message on other nights. Just Pride Night. So let’s not pretend like this is anything but anti-LGBTQ.
Roupp and his colleagues later gave the standard Christian monologue to reporters saying they don’t hate LGBTQ people at all. They just don’t like them and that’s a totally different thing! They’re just following the Bible! They’re Christian so you’re not allowed to be mad at them! Stop persecuting them for their free speech!
“Kind of what the verse says, you know, the rainbow is a symbol of God’s covenant to us, and us as believers to stand firm in that. … There’s no hate at all. It’s just what I stand for and what I stand in. I believe in God, and that’s me.”
Roupp then was asked how he’d respond if someone from the LGBTQ+ community took exception to his inscription of the Bible verse on Pride Night.
“First of all, as a believer, I would push them to read the Bible,” Roupp stated. “I think God has blessed me in so many ways, and I don’t think I would be here right now if it wasn’t for him. So, like I said, there’s no hate in it at all, you know, like I said, we live in a country where you’re welcome to believe what you want. There’s a freedom of speech and stuff like that, so that’s really all I have to say about that. I’m just thankful that God has put me in this situation and that I can go out and share his kingdom.”
…
Hentges said Saturday there had been discussions among several players in the days leading up to the Pride event on how to proceed. The reliever referenced “other Christians on the team that have the same beliefs” and said the group went to team leaders and then made a “collective decision.”
“It’s just something that I feel like I was forced to support when I don’t morally support it,” Hentges said. “There wasn’t hatred behind it. I think that’s kind of something that’s misinterpreted. I don’t hate the LGBTQ community. It’s just something I believed and talked with teammates and family, and they supported it.”
There wasn’t hatred behind it. These guys just want LGBTQ people to know they are evil sinners who deserve the wrath of God. You know, Christian Love. It’s such a cop-out of an answer because Roupp and Hentges clearly didn’t want to say what they actually believe about LGBTQ people so they tiptoed around it, as if that would make anything better.
It’s also not a matter of “free speech” because this has nothing to do with the government. MLB sets the rules.
The pathetic responses from the Christian bigots led to predictable praise from fellow religious bigot JD Vance, and an offer to pay future fines from “comedian” Rob Schneider, while the team quickly issued a statement denouncing the players’ actions… but not saying they would do anything about it:
“The San Francisco Giants are proud to support Pride Night and the LGBTQ+ community. Baseball should be a place where everyone feels welcome, respected, and valued.
“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. Those choices do not change our organization’s commitment to inclusion, belonging, and creating a welcoming environment for all.
“We remain grateful to our fans, partners, employees, players, and coaches who help make Pride Night a meaningful celebration.”
That was followed by a mild rebuke from a Higher Power: Major League Baseball itself.
Not because of the anti-LGBTQ sentiments, which the players are allowed to have, but because there are rules about putting personal messages on your equipment:
“The writing on the cap violates our rules and consistent with normal practice we have warned the players about future violations,” Pat Courtney, MLB’s chief communications officer, told Outsports in a statement.
It was a weak statement that didn’t go into any specifics about what the consequences could be if they did it again—or how immediately those consequences would be implemented. How many strikes will these guys get?
And then, somehow, MLB made it worse. They issued a second statement, watering down the first one, and making it clear that their only concern was the act of writing a message, not the content of the message:
“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,” MLB said.
“We respect players’ right to free expression. However, writing of any kind, with any message, is prohibited per Major League Baseball’s Uniform Regulations which provides in part that, ‘(a) Player may not write, attach, affix, embroider or otherwise display nicknames or messages on apparel or playing equipment…’. We have given the same warning numerous times in the past to players for messages such as ‘Dad’, ‘Happy Mother’s Day, I Love Mom,’ and names of family members.”
Again, they didn’t say what the consequences would be if these players did something similar in the future. Probably nothing, given that baseball players have put messages on their caps for right-wing and sensible reasons and there’s no evidence of MLB taking any action against them. Hell, Clayton Kershaw did the same thing with the same Bible verses last year. No punishment. In fact, Jim Buzinski of Outsports.com noted, “In reviewing Spotrac’s database of MLB fines and suspensions going back 10 years, I could find no examples of players being fined for a uniform violation.”
It’s not like this is limited to baseball either. Hell, a player on the Chicago Bulls was booted off the team after unleashing an anti-LGBTQ rant back in March (though the team said he was let go for unrelated reasons).
It’s worth reiterating that the players in question didn’t have to wear the Pride Night hats at all. They could have worn the regular ones. Instead, they wore the rainbow caps and wrote a message on them, to be extra dickish to their fans.
Rarely has this kind of pushback been part of a concerted team-wide effort, though. Maybe that’s why MLB put out a statement now when they said nothing publicly in the past.
My concern isn’t that other teams will do this, realizing there are no real penalties. It’s that some teams may stop doing anything Pride-related in the future because they want to avoid controversy altogether.
Whatever the case, God doesn’t appear to be on the Giants’ side. They have one of the worst records in all of baseball. And after their antics this week, there’s even less to root for.
It's not an argument I expect to win any time soon, but the religious nutters are the people with the problem. They can't prove a single one of their claims, and all they have is some ancient writing preserved in their magic book written by people who, by the standards of the modern world, really didn't know much of anything.
OT: I’ve got commenters at CP trying to argue that rainbows are the property of god.