Here we go! Kneeling season has begun, courtesy of the San Francisco Giants and Los Angeles Angels in two preseason exhibition baseball games. This promises to be the grand-daddy of all kneeling seasons, especially in pro football and pro basketball, which start up later.
Several members of the Giants took a knee Monday (see photo above) in solidarity with the Marxists of Black Lives Matter prior to a game against Oakland. In another exhibition game Monday, the Los Angeles Angels pitcher Keynan Middleton heard the national anthem from his knee, too.
San Francisco proudly posted a video of the disrespectful behavior on its official Twitter account with the caption "#BlackLivesMatter." A photo shows that the vast majority of players bucked the groupthink and stood for the stars and stripes.
Amir Vera, of CNN.com, reported on the latest social justice activism in sports and how Giants manager Gabe Kapler knelt with his activist players during the playing of the national anthem.
Kapler said he isn't pleased with how the nation is handling police brutality, and he parroted the usual systemic racism claptrap commonly heard in the leftist echo chamber.:
"I told them that I wanted to amplify their voices, and I wanted to amplify the voice of the Black community and marginalized communities as well. I told them that I wanted to use my platform to demonstrate my dissatisfaction with the way we've handled racism in our country. I wanted to demonstrate my dissatisfaction with our clear, systemic racism in our country, and I wanted them to know that they got to make their own decisions and we would respect and support those decisions."
This activist attitude runs deeply through the Giants organization, starting at the top with Farhan Zaidi, Giants president of baseball operations. He said he's proud of his kneelers because they participated in a national discussion on racial injustice.:
"We support those who knelt to peacefully protest racial injustice and those who stood to express love of country. We do not see these as mutually exclusive sentiments and believe freedom to express both is what our country is about."
Vera's story fingers outfielders Jaylin Davis, Mike Yastrzemski and Austin Slater and first-base coach Antoan Richardson as among players and staff who knelt. John Shea of the San Francisco Chronicle reported that coaches Antoan Richardson and Justin Viele, along with “multiple people in the bullpen,” kneeled.
Major League Baseball also chose activism over neutrality, risking the alienation of fans by defending the national anthem protests. This was never about disrespecting the flag and the military, MLB argued. Oh no? Well it sure looks a lot like disrespecting those who risked it all in defending our liberty.
Vera assumes systemic racism as fact in the United States. No bias here!:
"The kneeling comes at a time when athletes, entertainers and companies are coming to terms with systemic racism and the killings of Black people at the hands of police. Athletes from professional leagues to high school teams have been kneeling for the anthem in support of the ongoing protests for social justice and racial equality. ..."
Vera also gave a shout-out to "the most prominent athlete to take a knee during the anthem," former NFL player Colin Kaepernick, who started the kneeling nonsense in 2016.
Until Monday, the only kneeling that had occurred in Major League Baseball was by Oakland Athletics catcher Bruce Maxwell in 2017.
Major League Baseball is starting a 60-game season Thursday, with teams playing opponents only in their geographic regions in order to limit travel.
Will disgusting anthem protests proliferate in baseball? If that happens, will fans turn off and tune out? That remains to be seen, but Monday's social justice activism far out-weighed what fans bought tickets for: baseball.
