Sports

Major League Baseball Teams Have the Right To Offer Pride Uniforms. Should They?

The MLB's conduct is indisputably protected by the First Amendment. But that doesn't make it wise.

Billy Binion | 6.19.2026 4:00 PM

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Landen Roupp of the San Francisco Giants wears a Pride hat with Genesis 9: 12-16 written on it. (Larry Placido/Icon Sportswire 788/Larry Placido/Icon Sportswire/Newscom/Facebook)

Major League Baseball (MLB) found itself mired in controversy this past week after three San Francisco Giants players—Landen Roupp, J.T. Brubaker, and Ryan Walker—inscribed Bible verses on their hats that had been designed for the team's Pride night. Another, Sam Hentges, declined to wear the hat altogether. Whether people were mad at the players for their lack of pride or at the team and league for their alleged abundance of pride depends on vantage point. But people were mad.

Put differently, we are living in Groundhog Day, but make it gay. We've had this fight before. Around and around we have gone. A lot of people are wrong. So why are we still doing this?

The MLB may be wondering the same thing. "We have told teams, in terms of actual uniforms, hats, bases that we don't think putting logos on them is a good idea just because of the desire to protect players," said MLB commissioner Rob Manfred in 2023, "not putting them in a position of doing something that may make them uncomfortable because of their personal views." The Giants and the Los Angeles Dodgers, however, have continued incorporating the........

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