In a letter Monday, Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred blamed the organization for what he called “inadequate and not clear” communication with its players who planned to protest the team’s Pride Night.
Last week, Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri wrote a letter to Manfred and publicized the letter on social media. In the post, he wrote that MLB owed Christians “some answers” for what he alleged was religious discrimination. On Monday, Hawley published Manfred’s reply, which was dated June 19.
MLB initially sent a short statement about the three Giants pitchers writing a Bible verse on their league-issued Pride Night hats, saying the “writing on the cap violates our rules and consistent with normal practice we have warned the players about future violations.” That message riled up Republicans and led to Hawley’s initial letter to Manfred. (MLB later clarified the warning “had absolutely nothing to do with the content of the message” but rather was about the players violating the league’s uniform policy by writing on their hats.)
Manfred replied to Hawley with a three-page letter on official MLB letterhead. In it, he defended MLB’s warning to the Giants players but said the fault for the issue ultimately lies with the team.
“Unfortunately, this year the Giants communication with players was inadequate and not clear,” Manfred wrote in the letter. “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 never fined or disciplined, nor will they ever be.”
Outside of leaguewide events with special hats, Manfred said the league enacted a policy in 2023 to ban teams from wearing special uniforms, hats or equipment “except under very narrow circumstances.” This likely was in response to several Tampa Bay Rays players objecting to wearing rainbow-colored logo hats for their team’s Pride Night in 2022. Manfred wrote that two teams, the Giants and Dodgers, requested their use of rainbow-colored logo hats to be “grandfathered” in. According to Manfred, this was acceptable to the league as long as “no player or uniformed staff would be required to wear them.”
But on June 12, Landen Roupp, JT Brubaker and Ryan Walker each wrote similar verses from the Book of Genesis on their hats and received a warning from the league for altering their equipment. (The specific passage of Genesis has been used by Christian conservatives to “reclaim” the rainbow’s symbolism from the LGBTQ+ community.)
According to Manfred, the players received the warning improperly because the Giants failed to make it clear they could simply opt to not wear the hat at all. (That doesn’t explain how the fourth player, Sam Hentges, avoided a warning by wearing the regular orange SF-logo hat, the apparently proper way to protest the rainbow-colored logo hats.)
Manfred concluded the letter by reiterating MLB believes that allowing celebrations, but not requiring players to wear uniforms for said celebrations, “strikes the right balance” between support for communities and players’ comfort and religious beliefs.
The players themselves have told beat reporters covering the team for the California Post and San Francisco Chronicle that they did not feel like they were discriminated against with MLB’s warning and weren’t pressured to wear the Pride Night hats. They also said they had been planning the protest for weeks, according to the Chronicle, raising some questions about Manfred’s explanation. (The Chronicle and SFGATE are both owned by Hearst but have separate newsrooms.)
SFGATE has reached out to the Giants, asking for a comment in response to Manfred’s letter. The team did not respond in time for publication.