Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) wrote a dramatic letter to the Major League Baseball commissioner after three players were warned for writing Bible verses on their Pride Night hats.
“I write with grave concern over your reported decision to issue a proper warning to a few Major League Baseball (MLB) players for publicly expressing their Christian faith,” Hawley, 46, wrote to commissioner Rob Manfred on Tuesday, June 16. “This follows a high-profile undercover investigation that exposed at the very least one MLB team discriminated against a player based on his Catholic faith. You have to answer for what appears to be a pattern of discrimination inside MLB against baseball players who profess their Christian faith.”
Last week, three San Francisco Giants pitchers — Landen Roupp, J.T. Brubaker and Ryan Walker — wrote a variation of verse Genesis 9: 12-16 on their Pride Night hats, which establishes a rainbow because the everlasting sign of his covenant with Noah and all living creatures on Earth.
A fourth Giants pitcher, Sam Hentges, refused to wear the hat altogether.
“Your organization has reportedly issued warnings to those players,” Hawley said. “MLB has said it is a content-neutral policy and that MLB ‘respect[s] players’ right to free expression.’ But that is dubious, provided that MLB is openly promoting a political viewpoint and possibly compelling adherence to that viewpoint.”
He continued, “The league’s claim that it merely forbids ‘writing of any kind’ on its uniforms doesn’t survive a cursory review of the league’s recent history. In 2020, MLB itself turned its uniforms and its fields right into a billboard for political and social messages. 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 in order that players could display progressive political slogans on their cleats.”
.S. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO). Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images
Hawley argued that it was his mission to “expose” the league’s alleged “anti-Christian bigotry.”
“The liberty to live out one’s faith doesn’t end on the ballpark gate,” he wrote. “Americans of each creed are entitled to confidence that the institutions of our national pastime is not going to single out religious expression for punishment while celebrating messages of the league’s own selecting. I trust the league shares that commitment, and I stay up for your prompt and complete response.”
A Major League Baseball spokesperson issued a press release on Tuesday, clarifying that their message to the Giants players had “absolutely nothing to do” with what they’d written on their hats specifically.
“We respect players’ right to free expression,” the league said. “We’ve given the identical warning quite a few times previously to players for messages equivalent to ‘Dad,’ ‘Completely satisfied Mother’s Day, I Love Mom’ and names of relations.”
Not one of the Giants players were fined or subjected to any disciplinary motion.