Rob Manfred says Giants players didn’t know they could skip the Pride hats. Huh?
MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred is contradicting the SF Giants Pride cap situation again, as one player did refuse to wear the hat.
Mark
The l eadership of the San Francisco Giants has been questioned for over a month after three players chose to write Bible verses on their Pride hats during a June game at Oracle Park.
The franchise itself hasn’t adequately apologized for the disrespect to LGBTQ fans, and now MLB’s commissioner is letting the players off the hook by saying the franchise didn’t let its players know they could skip wearing the rainbow hats altogether.
“The understanding with the two clubs that were grandfathered [the Giants and Dodgers], in terms of using logos on the field,” Manfred said, “was that they would take responsibility to communicate with their players that they had the option to wear their own uniforms if they were uncomfortable with whatever logo it happened to be.
“That didn’t happen. End of story.”
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This contradicts what one of the players decided to do.
Reliever Sam Hentges — a fellow pitcher with the outspoken anti-gay Christian pitchers — didn’t wear the Pride hat on the same night that Landen Roupp, JT Brubaker, and Ryan Walker defaced the Pride hats. He wore the traditional Giants hat exactly as Manfred describes.
So is Manfred insinuating that Hentges decided on his own not to wear the Pride hat? There is a disconnect here, and it lets the three players who wrote on their Pride hat an excuse, even though they had an example from another teammate of how they could opt out of the Pride celebration.
Manfred has previously reiterated the same sentiment in a letter to a U.S. senator, Josh Hawley, who launched an investigation into whether the team was discriminating against the players’ ability to express their religions.
“Some players apparently did not understand that they had the option to wear their normal uniform and elected to add messages to their hats bearing the pride logo as a result. The Giants players were allowed to wear the hats with the biblical references for the entire game.
“After the game had concluded, my office issued a routine oral warning about the uniform policy violation — unfortunately it was issued before we became aware of the Giants’ lapse in communication. The players were neither fined nor disciplined, nor will they ever be.”
Sooooo… a few pitchers allegedly planned for days to deface the rainbow cap, while a fellow pitcher knew he could choose to wear the regular team cap?
That makes absolutely 100% through-and-through literally zero sense.
All of this could have been cleared up somewhat if the Giants themselves were clear about what they told their players before that game, but the president of the team, Buster Posey, infamously evaded all questions about the situation when asked last month.
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