MLB warned players about altering Pride Night caps, and Republicans took notice. Here’s what to know

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.

Several members of the San Francisco Giants added Bible verses or opted not to wear the themed cap at all during the club’s Pride Night on June 12. A few nights earlier, two Los Angeles Dodgers players did not wear rainbow-themed caps with their teammates.

MLB warned Giants players that writing on the caps is a violation of league policy, though the league added its issue was not with the content of the respective messages but the act of modifying the cap itself.

The fallout has included criticism from notable politicians, including Vice President JD Vance and Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley.

Here’s what to know about MLB and Pride Night:

Several members of the San Francisco Giants pitching staff — starter Landen Roupp and relievers JT Brubaker and Ryan Walker — added Bible verses to their caps during a 5-1 home loss to the Chicago Cubs during San Francisco’s annual Pride Night.

Roupp, a North Carolina native, wrote “Gen 9:12-16” in a silver marker on the front of the black cap, which had the team’s classic “SF” logo filled in with colors of the rainbow, long a symbol of the LGBTQ+ community.

The Genesis passage includes, “I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth,” according to the Bible’s New International Version translation.

“It’s just about God’s covenant and a promise he makes to us and his faithfulness and his mercy,” Roupp told reporters afterward. “Just kind of something I believe in and I stand firm in that and thankfully we live in a country where you know, we have freedom to believe what we want, yeah, and express what we want.”

Giants reliever Sam Hentges eschewed the Pride-themed cap altogether, opting instead for the club’s regular black version with the “SF” in orange.

The league issued a pair of statements in response.

The first noted that writing on the cap violates the league’s rules, and warned players about future violations.

The league issued another statement Tuesday to clarify that the “routine verbal warning” had nothing to do with the content of the respective messages but the act of modifying the uniform.

“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,” the league said.

Vance quote-tweeted a post mentioning MLB’s warning, writing, “Trump won we don’t have to do this anymore.”

President Donald Trump’s second administration has taken aggressive action against members of the LBGTQ+ community, the transgender community specifically.

Hawley penned a letter to MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred on Tuesday in which he expressed “grave concern” over the warning to the players. Hawley called the warning “dubious” because he feels MLB is already promoting a political viewpoint by having Pride-themed uniforms.

Hawley asked MLB to respond to several inquiries, including a list of all uniform violation fines over the last five years.

First-year San Francisco manager Tony Vitello, whose team entered Wednesday with the second-worst record in the National League, is trying to stay out of the fray.

“I didn’t know about the vice president, it hasn’t been in my world,” he said. “My world’s kind of been, ‘How do we find a way to beat the Braves?’ And then if we can beat them, try and beat them again. So hopefully our guys are focused on what they’ve got to do and handling their business the right way.”

In 2022, a handful of players on the Tampa Bay Rays declined to wear rainbow-colored logos during the team’s Pride Night. Reliever Jason Adam, now a member of the San Diego Padres, called it a “faith-based” decision.

“It’s just what we believe the lifestyle he’s (Jesus) encouraged us to live for our good, not to withhold,” Adam told the Tampa Bay Times in 2022. “But we love these men and women, we care about them and we want them to feel safe and welcome here.”

MLB is unique among the four major North American pro sports leagues in that a portion of its regular season falls in June, which is recognized as Pride Month in many countries, including the U.S. All but one MLB team — the Texas Rangers — schedules a Pride Night during June.

Other leagues, including the NBA and NHL, do have a majority of teams hold Pride-themed nights during their seasons. The NHL had a series of high-profile dust-ups around Pride Nights during the 2022-23 season.

Several players opted not to don Pride-themed pregame jerseys that season and at least two teams — the New York Rangers and Minnesota Wild — declined to host Pride Nights after initially advertising they would. Neither team offered a reason behind the decision.

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