Murphy, Dhillon go to bat for players in baseball’s Pride Night black eye

By Alan Wooten
The Center Square

How Major League Baseball can force one viewpoint upon players and “attack” them for expressing another is a puzzler to a North Carolina congressman.

Three days after Republican U.S. Rep. Dr. Greg Murphy wondered aloud on social media, Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon at the U.S. Department of Justice agreed in a letter penned to Commissioner Rob Manfred. Central to the issue was baseball’s Pride Night game in San Francisco on June 12, when multiple players for the Giants – wearing insignia with rainbow colors through the interlocking SF – wrote Bible verses on their caps.

Landen Roupp, born and raised in Rocky Mount in the district now represented by Democratic U.S. Rep. Don Davis, started on the mound against the Chicago Cubs. Relievers J.T. Brubaker and Ryan Walker also took the field with Bible verses on their hats, and reliever Sam Hentges didn’t wear the rainbow SF cap instead choosing the traditional uniform hat with orange letters.

“So how does Major League Baseball get away with forcing their players to wear a hat promoting one particular political viewpoint and then attacking them for expressing another?” Murphy opined on social media last Monday. “This is about baseball. Not politics.”

Baseball issued warnings it said were standard for the violation of writing messages on uniforms. Then Tuesday, amid backlash, doubled down by saying, “To be clear, this routine verbal warning not to wear the hat in future games in not disciplinary and had absolutely nothing to do with the content of the message.”

Dhillon’s Thursday letter wasn’t buying it. It read in part, “MLB has asserted that its warning to the Giants players ‘had absolutely nothing to do with the content of the message’ and that it merely is enforcing a policy that prohibits writing on uniforms. Yet, MLB has allowed players to wear uniform patches reading ‘Black Lives Matter.’ This double standard – under which players may not inscribe Bible verses on hats for one game only but may wear ‘Black Lives Matter’ patches for one game only – calls MLB’s true motives into question and raises serious concerns about MLB’s compliance with Title VII. Employers may not use facially neutral policies as ‘a pretext for discrimination.’”

She wrote that the Trump administration is committed to combatting religious discrimination, and the Department of Justice would hold employers accountable. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is investigating, Dhillon wrote.

Dhillon reminded Manfred of the Civil Rights Act, and within it, that “employers must modify their uniform requirements to reasonably accommodate their employees’ exercise of religion.”

Whereas advocates of allowing homosexual activity have used the rainbow in flags and other displays, the verses the players chose direct the audience to the Bible. Genesis 9:12-16, the Scripture they wrote, is from the story of Noah’s ark.

In Verse 11, God tells Noah never again “will there be a flood to destroy the earth.” Verse 12 reveals the sign of the covenant, and in Verse 13, God says, “I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth.”

“It’s just about God’s covenant and a promise that He makes to us – His faithfulness and His mercy,” Roupp told KNBR. “It’s just something I believe in, and I stand firm in that. Thankfully we live in a country where we have the freedom to believe what we want.

“There’s no hate at all. It’s just what I stand for, and what I stand in. I believe in God.”

U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., also wrote to Manfred, writing in part, “You must answer for what appears to be a pattern of discrimination within MLB against baseball players who profess their Christian faith.”

Writing on caps has been seen before, even very recently and prominently. In last year’s World Series, members of the Dodgers and Blue Jays wrote “#51” on their caps. Alex Vesia, who wears the jersey number for the Dodgers, missed the series to be with his wife after the tragic loss of their newborn daughter.

The Dodgers’ Blake Treinen chose a different yet familiar cap this year for the team’s Pride Night game. He wore the regular white interlocking LA; others had rainbow stripes through the letters. Last year, he inscribed Charlie Kirk’s name and two crosses onto his hat after last September’s assassination.

Manfred has taken black eyes for baseball’s politics before. No act in his tenure was more clearly political than pulling the 2021 All-Star Game from Atlanta over a voting rights bill.

The Texas Rangers are the only one of 30 teams that do not have a game in June associated with gender and sexual orientation commonly known as LGBTQ+.

Hentges, from Arden Hills, Minn., told ESPN, “It’s just something that I feel like I was forced to support when I don’t morally support it. There wasn’t hatred behind it. I think that’s kind of something that’s been misinterpreted.

“I don’t hate the LGBTQ community. It’s just something I believed and talked with teammates and family, and they supported it.”