Major League Baseball’s efforts to celebrate LGBTQ+ inclusivity during Pride Month are running into resistance from some players, and the league’s response to that pushback is drawing fire from prominent Republican figures.
During the San Francisco Giants’ Pride Night on June 12, several pitchers added Bible verses to their rainbow-themed caps during a 5-1 home loss to the Chicago Cubs. A few days before that, two Los Angeles Dodgers players also chose not to wear the rainbow-accented caps alongside their teammates.
Giants starters and relievers Landen Roupp, JT Brubaker, and Ryan Walker each wrote scripture references on their caps. Roupp, who is from North Carolina, used a silver marker to write “Gen 9:12-16” on the front of the black cap, which featured the team’s classic “SF” logo filled in with rainbow colors — a longstanding symbol of the LGBTQ+ community.
That passage from Genesis reads, in part: “I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth,” according to the New International Version of the Bible.
After the game, Roupp explained his reasoning to reporters. “It’s just about God’s covenant and a promise he makes to us and his faithfulness and his mercy,” he said. “Just kind of something I believe in and I stand firm in that and thankfully we live in a country where you know, we have freedom to believe what we want, yeah, and express what we want.”
Giants reliever Sam Hentges went a different route, skipping the Pride-themed cap entirely and wearing the team’s standard black cap with the orange “SF” logo instead.
MLB responded with two separate statements. The first put players on notice that writing on caps violates league rules. A follow-up statement issued Tuesday clarified that the “routine verbal warning” was not directed at the religious nature of the messages, but simply at the act of altering a uniform.
“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 league stated.
The controversy quickly caught the attention of national political figures. Vice President JD Vance shared a post about the MLB warning on social media, writing, “Trump won we don’t have to do this anymore.” President Donald Trump’s second administration has taken a notably aggressive stance toward the LGBTQ+ community, particularly targeting transgender individuals.
Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley sent a letter to MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred on Tuesday saying he had “grave concern” about the warning issued to the players. Hawley described the warning as “dubious,” arguing that MLB is already taking a political position by requiring Pride-themed uniforms in the first place. He asked the commissioner to respond to several questions, including a request for a full list of all uniform violation fines handed down over the past five years.
First-year Giants manager Tony Vitello, whose club entered Wednesday with the second-worst record in the National League, said he’s been too focused on the field to follow the political fallout.
“I didn’t know about the vice president, it hasn’t been in my world,” Vitello said. “My world’s kind of been, ‘How do we find a way to beat the Braves?’ And then if we can beat them, try and beat them again. So hopefully our guys are focused on what they’ve got to do and handling their business the right way.”
This isn’t the first time Pride Night has sparked controversy in baseball. Back in 2022, several Tampa Bay Rays players declined to wear rainbow logos during their team’s Pride Night. Reliever Jason Adam, who now plays for the San Diego Padres, described it as a faith-driven choice at the time.
“It’s just what we believe the lifestyle he’s (Jesus) encouraged us to live for our good, not to withhold,” Adam told the Tampa Bay Times in 2022. “But we love these men and women, we care about them and we want them to feel safe and welcome here.”
MLB finds itself in a unique position among the four major North American professional sports leagues because part of its regular season falls in June, which is widely recognized as Pride Month. All but one MLB team — the Texas Rangers — holds a Pride Night in June.
Other leagues, including the NBA and NHL, also see a majority of their teams host Pride-themed events during their respective seasons. The NHL dealt with its own string of high-profile controversies surrounding Pride Nights during the 2022-23 season, when multiple players refused to wear Pride-themed pregame jerseys and at least two teams — the New York Rangers and Minnesota Wild — quietly canceled their Pride Nights after initially announcing them, without providing any explanation.
