Getting your
Trinity Audioplayer ready...With the Giants embroiled in a national controversy following last Friday’s Pride Night at Oracle Park, longtime broadcaster Mike Krukow took to the airwaves on Wednesday morning and spoke at length about the issue, expressing his support for the LGBTQIA+ community.
“I obviously respect the right for these guys to voice their opinion. That’s what a lot of men and women gave their lives for these ballplayers to do. Do I agree with it? Well, no,” Krukow told Kerry Crowley and Marcus Boucher on KNBR 680’s “The Murph and Markus Show.” “I think that once you’ve lived in the Bay Area for a number of years like we have, you understand that the strength of this city is its ethnicity, its culture.
“It’s the freedom for people to be able to come to a city and be free. And I think when you’re a player and you come into this environment, it’s your responsibility to know just how sensitive this city is in regards to that culture freedom and religious freedom and the way that you live your life.”
On Friday, pitchers Landen Roupp, JT Brubaker and Ryan Walker each wrote Bible verses on the Giants’ Pride Night caps, which featured all the colors of the Pride Progress flag on the “SF” logo. Sam Hentges did not wear the hat, instead putting on the team’s standard black cap with an orange logo.
“I grew up Christian. I’ve grown in my faith. There wasn’t any hatred behind it. It’s just something that I felt like I was being forced to support when I don’t morally support it,” Hentges said last week. “But there wasn’t hatred behind it. That’s kind of a thing that’s misinterpreted. I don’t hate the LGBTQ community.”
Major League Baseball issued a statement on Monday that “writing on the cap violates our rules, and consistent with normal practice, we have warned the players about future violations.”
The league followed up on Tuesday, emphasizing that the players weren’t warned because of what they wrote, but because of the league’s uniform regulations, which “provides in part that, ‘(a) player may not write, attach, affix, embroider or otherwise display nicknames or messages on apparel or playing equipment …'”
“I think they were in for a rude awakening with the response,” Krukow said. “And it wasn’t just from the gay community. It was from the Northern California community that supported the gay community. This is what has been incredible — the way that the reaction has centered around the emotion that Northern California has for the gay community.”
This issue is personal for Krukow, whose son, Wes, is gay and married to his partner, Ted.
“I’m so proud of him,” Krukow told Ann Killion of the San Francisco Chronicle. “I’ve seen gay life through my son’s eyes. The culture and community is so beautiful.”
The Giants have a history of celebrating Pride dating back to 1994, when they became the first professional sports team to host an HIV/AIDS awareness game. In 2021, the Giants became the first MLB team to incorporate Pride colors into their on-field apparel for their Pride game.
“There’s an irony to it because the Giants organization is getting dunked on as well, and that hurt me. It hurt me because I saw in 1994 they were the first team to ever take on the challenge of going against public opinion and the outrage of even associating with the gay community,” Krukow said. “They openly went out and said, ‘We support the gay community. We support ‘Until There’s a Cure’ Day. We are going to raise money to fight AIDS. We support the community.’
“And they did it with love. And it’s happened since 1994, every year, annually. And the Giants were the first team at the ballpark to wear the Pride flag — and that took on criticism from around the country. So, it hurt me to see that there was a criticism directed towards the Giants because of all that they have done to help the gay community.”
In recent days, politicians on both sides of the aisle have taken to social media to discuss the topic.
Missouri state Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) sent a letter to MLB commissioner Rob Manfred in response to Monday’s warning, demanding that the league answer for what he claims to be a “pattern of discriminating against Christians within MLB against baseball players who profess their Christian faith.”
“In 2020, MLB itself turned its uniforms and its fields into a billboard for political and social messages,” Hawley wrote. “It created jersey patches reading “Black Lives Matter” and “United for Change.” It authorized “BLM” to be stenciled onto pitching mounds. And it suspended its own equipment rules so that players could display progressive political slogans on their cleats.
“The league went beyond tolerating speech—it designed speech, promoted speech, and shoehorned social and political messages into the game broadcast to millions of Americans. Yet when three players added a handful of characters citing the Book of Genesis to their caps, the league reached for its rulebook.”
Vice President J.D. Vance took to social media as well, writing, “Trump won we don’t have to do this anymore” in response to a post about Roupp, Brubaker and Walker being fined.
California state Sen. Scott Wiener issued his own statement on Tuesday, which read, in part, “MLB must hold firm in enforcing its rules. And the Giants must do better. There cannot be a homophobia exemption to the MLB uniform defacement ban.”
Actor and comedian Rob Schneider offered to pay any fines (no fines were issued).