Major League Baseball will never get through a season without a Pride Night controversy. If that becomes the goal, then the only sure option is to eliminate the promotion altogether. That may not be the worst idea: The cowards and vampires who run the league and its teams don't deserve the simple goodwill that comes from saying "gesundheit" to a stranger on a bus, let alone the presumption of human decency that might otherwise belong to those who in sincere good faith open their doors to a marginalized group. All-devouring billionaire demigods are no more committed to dignity and equality in this context than in any other. The very moment they can get away with it, the very moment prevailing winds make it strategically advisable, MLB's owners will host Eat The Homeless Nights.
On the other hand, think of a trans teen in San Francisco, who shows up on a Pride Night Friday in June to watch the lousy wayward Giants lose to the Chicago Cubs, with the expectation that for this one night they will be more surrounded than usual, and maybe more surrounded than ever, by friends, fellows, and allies. The event itself might be passive, square, carefully guarded from any genuine cultural engagement, but its simplest, easiest objectives—one night where "you're more likely to see other queer people, and maybe your friends who don't like baseball could be convinced that it would be a fun time," as described by our Lauren Theisen—don't have to stand up as a symbol, or function as a lever in a movement, in order to accomplish something meaningful for someone. For the queer spectator who shows up only for a good time (one who can escape social media, anyway), Pride Night really should hold up as an experience of feeling basically whole and basically welcomed at the ballpark.
It's exhausting how reliably this gets yoinked into a matter of religious freedom and thus contorted into a battleground of the culture wars. It's relatively new, in the scheme of things, for Pride Night festivities to include alternate uniforms. The San Francisco Giants have been doing it since 2021, and Friday night they rolled out caps with rainbow-colored lettering on the front logo. The majority of Giants players wore these without any fuss. At least four, all of them pitchers, staged protests. Landen Roupp, JT Brubaker, and Ryan Walker wore the hats but scrawled bible verses onto them in shiny silver. Sam Hentges refused to wear the hat altogether, and instead wore a standard black cap with orange lettering. Roupp and Hentges made sure to insist to reporters afterward that their actions were motivated not by hate but by a belief system that apparently precludes support for the dignity of gay people.
Baseball, it will surprise absolutely no one to learn, has not taken the most inspiring stance on the actions of the San Francisco Four. "The writing on the cap violates our rules," wrote MLB chief communications officer Pat Courtney, not in a private letter to the players' union but in a public statement issued to media outlets, "and consistent with normal practice, we have warned the players about future violations." MLB wants to be clear: The league objects not to the substance of the messages scrawled onto the Pride hats, but to the act of writing on clothing. "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 Giants also stopped short of condemning their own players. "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," the team said in a statement, seeming to contradict MLB's warning about uniform violations, but acknowledging that those personal choices "have caused pain and anger to many in the LGBTQ+ community." This mushy response, calibrated to avoid any appearance of even mild disappointment in the open bigotry of their players, also failed to mollify conservative leadership: Josh Hawley wrote to MLB commissioner Rob Manfred Tuesday noting his concerns over MLB's "apparent pattern of discriminating against Christians while promoting left-wing ideologies."
Bible verses are a perfect cheat for disingenuous right-wing culture warriors, and sexuality and gender culture war is another perfect shortcut for a political movement whose only true aim is consolidation of power among the people who desire it in its purest, most absolute forms. In that sense, the four aggrieved pitchers are serving their bosses better by protesting than by wearing the stupid hats.
That's not to say that these four Giants idiots don't feel something like sincere aggravation at having been instructed to don the symbol of something they hate. But to me it is worth noting that, in the best case, there's nothing of genuine value to be gained from putting avowed, unapologetic bigots in Pride gear. The fiction of unanimity won't stand for long, and in any case the fake visual of it is not so very different from Jerry Jones kneeling alongside his players with his horror-show face twisted into history's shit-eatingest smirk of corporate triumph. And the caps, plus a calligraphy pen, empowered these four bozos to upstage the event with their cheap activism.
That owners can force workers into this or that uniform signals nothing but a degree of control over their workforce. That doesn't change with the uniform's colors, and it becomes even more grotesque and cynical when it is being done to co-opt a movement and ingratiate a bloodless organization to an exhausted liberal consensus that is actively under severe attack by the same ownership class selling the merch, and their political allies. As satisfying as it is to think of forcing your enemies to wear your logo, it's as important as ever to remember who exactly is doing the forcing, and to what end.
