As our own Grateful Calvin reported earlier, Major League Baseball warned players that certain behaviors would not be tolerated. That announcement was made after three San Francisco pitchers, Landon Roupp, JT Brubaker, and Ryan Walker, wrote Bible verses on their rainbow-colored team caps on Pride Night, while a fourth, Sam Hentges, refused to wear the cap at all, opting instead for the regular black-and-orange Giants cap.
The San Francisco Chronicle has now weighed in, saying that the players "defaced" their uniforms with Bible verses.
OPINION: On Pride Night, four Giants pitchers on this woebegone team opted to either deface their official uniform or ignore it altogether, hijacking the event for their own purposes. https://t.co/TKmWZXm15S
— San Francisco Chronicle (@sfchronicle) June 16, 2026
Ann Killion writes that the Giants pitchers didn’t just deface Pride uniforms; they alienated their fans and city:
Yet some of the snowflakes on the Giants, the pitching staff specifically, decided to say a giant F-you to a good chunk of their fan base. On a night that was supposed to be about inclusion, they hijacked the event for their own purposes. In the name of Christianity, they took a decidedly un-Christian stance of exclusion and judgment.
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“It’s just something that I feel like I was forced to support,” said Hentges, who became the first Giants player to refuse to wear the Pride Night gear, “when I don’t morally support it.”
What about the people who support him, and his team? What about the city whose name is on the front of his uniform, a city that fully backs his team?
Is that not important to him and his band of homophobic brothers?
"A decidedly un-Christian stance," says the sports opinion writer.
You think scripture is “defacing” the uniform?
— Bonchie (@bonchieredstate) June 16, 2026
You want to rethink that?
Only the most emotionally delicate will force people to speak words they don’t believe, or in this case, proclaim a message they don’t believe. This is baseball. It doesn’t require a particular sexuality in order to enjoy it.
— Bleu Cheque (@VERBAL_CHANCLA) June 16, 2026
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So you hate the First Amendment.
— JWF (@JammieWF) June 16, 2026
Your newspaper is an intolerant, bigoted Christophobic rag that fosters hate and violence.
— Cynical Publius (@CynicalPublius) June 16, 2026
Live and let live. Why do you insist on shoving your religion down the throats of people who simply wish to be left alone and not be forced to go against their own deeply-held,…
"… long-standing faith?"
Wait, the guys who just wanted to play baseball without being forced to celebrate men marrying men, transing kids, men in women’s sports, and buying babies from their parents… are the hijackers?
— Josh Wood (@J_K_Wood) June 16, 2026
Wow, hijacking something for their own purposes?
— Billy Gribbin (@BillyGribbin) June 16, 2026
At the Pride Night at the baseball game you say?
Proof that the LGBTQ+ movement has never been about "letting people be free to love who they want" - it has always been about forced compliance. Not one of these cowards ever writes on the teachings of Islam, because they don't have the moral fortitude to fight real extremism.
— TweetyBurg (@nivratsmom) June 16, 2026
This you praising athletes hijacking the event for their own purposes?
— Box Cat DGAF (@cgraft) June 16, 2026
Double standards aren’t journalism. pic.twitter.com/Gim5D5rNEi
Not everyone has to agree with your personal choices, and frankly, it was inappropriate for MLB to compel players' speech and implicit support through their uniforms.
— Kristi L. Talmadge (@KristiTalmadge) June 16, 2026
I don't care what you do in private as consenting adults but don't make religious people pretend to support it.
Whoa! The San Francisco Chronicle just took a left-of-center stance!
— The Olde Geek (@JIM_THE_BOSS_) June 16, 2026
What courage to stand apart as different!
Uniform was already defaced, already hijacked when you put the rainbow on it when it represents a specific ideology that not everyone agrees with. Double standard?
— Kyle Bowling (@KyleBowling12) June 16, 2026
And it totally wasn't the gays hijacking a baseball game. Totally.
— ChiefMasterRope (@ChiefMasterRope) June 16, 2026
Saying they "defaced" their rainbow caps by writing Bible verses on them certainly is a take.
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