In a letter to Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO), Major League Baseball (MLB) Commissioner Robert D. Manfred, Jr. blamed a warning issued to three San Francisco Giants players who wrote Bible verses on their Pride Night caps on a “lapse in communication.”
In letter dated June 19 posted by Hawley to social media Monday, Manfred responded to a formal letter of inquiry issued by the senator three days earlier regarding the MLB’s warning sent to the players the day after a Pride Night game on June 12. The warning rebuked them for writing “Gen 9:12-16,” a reference to the Bible verse Genesis 9:12-16, on their Pride caps.
Players actually had the option to wear their regular caps, but that option was not clearly communicated, Manfred claimed in his letter to Hawley:
“Unfortunately, this year the Giants communication with players was inadequate and not clear. 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 the result.”
The Giants’ “lapse in communication” to players wasn’t discovered by the league until after the warning was issued, Manfred claims in his letter:
“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 neither fined nor disciplined, nor will they ever be,” the MLB commissioner promised.
Manfred also claimed that the league’s uniform policy is enforced uniformly – but, that’s clearly not the case, Sen. Hawley explained in a June 16 post of his letter to the league:
“The league’s claim that it merely forbids ‘writings of any kind’ on its uniforms does not survive a cursory review of the league’s recent history. In 2020, MLB itself turned its uniforms and its fields into a billboard for political and social messages.”
Hawley’s letter recalled how MLB allowed jerseys, pitching mounds and other equipment to be altered to broadcast social and political messages:
“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 the caps, the leagued reached for its rulebook.”
“This does not appear to be an isolated incident,” Sen. Hawley wrote, citing alleged retribution against a Catholic player on the Washington Nationals team and noting that MLB’s exemption from federal antitrust laws carries with it “a corresponding measure of accountability” and the “closest scrutiny when it appears to wield its market power to punish Americans for their beliefs.”
