Giants, MLB fail their LGBTQIA+ fans with Pride

An event that should never have occurred, and I don’t mean the Pride Night itself.

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Do you know what the most pathetic thing about the four Giants’ pitchers who actively refused to take part in the Pride Day celebration in San Francisco this weekend is? How cowardly they all were in defending their choice. These are weak men who believe they are strong, men with no room in their hearts or minds for an entire community — for anything but their own myopia.

Starting pitcher Landen Roupp fumbled his way through some boilerplate explanations about why he and relievers JT Brubaker and Ryan Walker wrote Bible verses on their Pride Day hats, saying, “It’s just about God’s covenant and a promise that he makes to us that, you know, his faithfulness and his mercy. That’s just kind of something I believe in, and I stand firm in that, and I’m thankful we live in a country where, you know, we have the freedom to believe what we want … and express what we want.”

Roup also took the incredible route of saying that “There’s no hate at all. It’s just what I stand for and what I stand in. I believe in God, and that’s me,” as if no one celebrating Pride also believes in God — maybe not the one you and your fellow bigots have dreamed up in your head, Landen — and also suggested that anyone looking to criticize him maybe instead “read the Bible.” Which, again, this guy can’t even say with his whole chest why he wrote this verse on his hat, so he might want to take his own advice there. What a worm.

Tim Jackson, almost a year ago to the day, covered the problem with the specific verse cited on these Pride Hats, so let me borrow that for you today:

It’s essential when processing that the passage is often cited by conservative Christian movements that want to take back the rainbow, emphasizing it as a symbol of God’s promise. What, exactly, is promised is less relevant than the notion of ownership. They consider it a divine symbol, shared by those touched by the divine nature, and out of reach to those who aren’t. The meaning of the symbol to those within the LGBTQ community, one of acceptance and inclusion, is contorted into an ill-fitting hat in the eye of the Lord. The message is clear: These groups want to undo the LGBTQ community by filtering its own language through what they deem to be a holier, more pleasant lens.

Writing Gen: 9:12-16 on your Pride hat is saying, “the rainbow does not belong to you, it belongs to me.” And the reason it does not “belong” to the queer community, in the eyes of these Christians, is because they are bigots. That’s the beginning and end of it. And they of course cite freedom of speech, as if this is a government issue, but it’s not that; and more importantly, even if it were, everyone still gets to think you’re a big piece of shit for writing it and thinking it. Which you all are, by the way.

How did the rest of the Giants’ organization respond to this? Well, manager Tony Vitello also spewed some drivel after being asked if there were discussions with the pitchers about the hats and Bible verses before the game.

“Not really. I mean, just kind of a general knowledge of the individuals have the freedom to do what they think is best,” Vitello said. “But I do think it’s been apparent from day one, actually, even some of the exhibition games, it’s pretty impressive how the Giants, as an organization, try and embrace the entire community. … We don’t want to be divided, but you can divide it up into certain sections, if you know what I mean. And there’s a pretty good trade-off. I mean, obviously, the success hasn’t been what I want it to be, but even I feel it. The way they give back and embrace the team is different. … The crowds are bigger in numbers. There’s a unique vibe to each night when there is a community recognized. So the back and forth there is good, and as always, even if our record was 20 games better than it was, you always want to give back more.”

Thanks, Tony, you’re a real leader of men there with the deflections of how great the organization that is actively failing these “sections” are for what they have done in the past. At least he said anything, though: president of baseball operations, Buster Posey, hasn’t spoken up either in defense or against his players here. The only one who has actually even attempted to stand against any Giants players in the organization is the longest-tenured player on it, Logan Webb.

Logan Webb, the longest-tenured Giant and one of the team’s most respected team leaders, grew up in the Sacramento area and has friends from different backgrounds throughout the clubhouse. He said, “You can’t force anybody. They’re grown-ups, they can make their own decisions.”

That’s obviously grading on a curve.

From that same Athletic piece with the above Vitello quote came word that MLB had issued a warning to the Giants about the hats: “The writing on the cap violates our rules, and consistent with normal practice, we have warned the players about future violations.” Oh, good, a warning. That’ll show ‘em. There should have been a warning when Clayton Kershaw pulled this stunt before, and anyone following in his footsteps should have actually gotten in trouble. Of course, with the way right-wingers respond to even the gentlest reproach, a warning might as well be attempted murder, too.

One day a year. That’s all MLB asks of these dorks, and neither some players — nor MLB itself — can even manage that much without embarrassment.

Ann Killion has more on this whole story over at the San Francisco Chronicle, on how these Giants’ pitchers alienated fans. It’s absolutely worth your time, unlike the toothless statements of these bozos.

And here’s one more from me, as last week for Baseball Prospectus I responded to Rob Manfred saying that the luxury tax system was a failure at maintaining competitive balance, which simply isn’t true unless you look at it through a very narrow lens.

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The MLBPA (surprise) announced their opening proposals

Some thoughts on the MLBPA’s opening proposals and MLB’s expected response.

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On Wednesday, the MLB Players Association sent out a press release detailing the opening proposals they sent to the the league. It was a delightful little surprise, considering the PA tends to be quiet about this sort of thing, but — and this is just my opinion here, as someone who has been on this beat for multiple collective bargaining agreements — the idea is likely to keep pace with the league, which will absolutely release info every time proposals are exchanged and leading up to the next batch, as well. That’s how a narrative is controlled, and with the union not having the kind of explicit and obvious support from both media and fans that it enjoyed in 2021-2022, both in the lead-in and during the lockout itself, it’s understandable that the PA would use the 2026 negotiations to attempt to keep the story in check.

I covered the proposals — what we know of them at this time, anyway, the PA gave a broad view with few figures in it in its statement — over at Baseball Prospectus, which you’ll need a subscription to read. However, I can give you the broad strokes of the broad strokes: the PA is doing essentially what I suggested it should do back in April, with expansions to the league minimum salary, arbitration eligibility, and the bonus pool for pre-arb players, but on top of that is also trying to get ahead of MLB’s desire for a salary cap with a plan to reshape revenue-sharing, as well as reward low-revenue teams for spending and punish those who avoid it.

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UNITE HERE is keeping busy

Collective bargaining, ICE threats, the World Cup, and strike threats. Local UNITE HERE unions have their hands full in 2026.

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Concessions workers at Target Field, home of the Minnesota Twins, have been rallying for improved pay and working conditions for some time now. At the Twins’ home opener this year, back on April 3, members of union UNITE HERE Local 17 gathered outside Target Field to speak to fans about the low pay they received, which, per UNITE’s own wording, “it takes more than an hour of work just to afford a hamburger at the stadium.”

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New WNBA CBA secures union’s most necessary win

The WNBPA has plenty to fight for in the future, but it also has the ability to fight for what it deserves thanks to a key W in this year’s CBA.

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There is plenty to love about the new collective bargaining agreement between the WNBA and the WNB Players Association. For one, that there’s a new CBA with wins in it at all is a victory, given that the league’s approach to bargaining was to waste time and then emphasize how little of it was left before an imagined deadline. The union — save a little public setback that was swiftly taken care of and recanted — did an excellent job of sticking together and ignoring the league’s many empty threats about what it could afford and not afford, about how much time was left to come to an agreement why won’t you just agree to what we’ve offered already.

You can read the full list of “key” agreements in the CBA here, but there is also this from the presser the WNBA released, to catch you up in a hurry:

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MLB and Polymarket, NCAA and DraftKings

There are differing ways to handle the presence of prediction markets and sportsbooks, and MLB and NCAA would not be less aligned on them.

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MLB and “prediction market exchange” Polymarket agreed to a deal last week, which is exactly the kind of thing you want to hear while two of the league’s pitchers are under federal investigation for alleged outcome manipulations for prop bets that resulted in “charges of wire fraud conspiracy, honest services wire fraud conspiracy, money laundering conspiracy and conspiracy to influence sporting events by bribery.”

There are a couple of ways to look at this whole deal, one of which has been done in this space before and elsewhere, a raging against the fact that society has taken this turn and MLB has decided the check is worth directly involving itself in further propagating it. We have already seen where that has gotten us — again, federal charges — but it is worth pointing out that this likely would have happened without MLB’s direct involvement with sports betting.

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What are Kelsey Plum and Breanna Stewart doing?

The pair of WNBPA vice presidents are making internal discussions external ones, and the only thing that will come from it is harming the union’s bargaining power.

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You do not have to agree with every other member of your union on every little thing, and far be it from me to suggest such a thing. However, you are all on the same side, facing off against management, a fact that is true all the time but is at its truest at the bargaining table. Solidarity is vital here, especially as far as a public face goes: the bosses are always looking for cracks, for division, for fears to exploit. You cannot give them any of that; division is ammunition, and it will be aimed at you in short order.

And yet, WNBA stars Kelsey Plum and Breanna Stewart are both publicly speaking on union matters that should be internal only. The two, who are also vice presidents of the union’s executive player committee and therefore are in a position where it seems as if they are speaking for membership as a whole whenever they step in front of a microphone, spent the early part of the week discussing how the revenue-sharing progress made in bargaining to this point already feels like a win and that a strike simply isn’t worth it. That is a discussion to be had, sure, but it sure as shit ain’t one you have in front of a microphone with press around. That’s internal business.

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Rumored MLB salary floor figures are unserious

The good news is that all this talk of a salary cap makes it seem even less likely that a real fight over one is brewing.

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There has been more and more discussion of MLB’s owners pushing for a salary cap of late, which makes sense: as the regular season approaches, we also move closer to bargaining season. Despite all of this, I’m still not fully convinced that the owners actually plan to give up part or all of the 2027 campaign in order to implement a salary cap, and it’s actually because of the increased chatter.

I don’t mean that contradictorily for the sake of it, don’t worry. What I’m getting at is that the nature of the conversation is convincing me that this is more feeling out, more keeping a discussion topic alive rather than letting it die, than a true and honest attempt at implementing a salary cap. Or, as Joe Sheehan more accurately refers to it, a payroll band: a cap comes with a floor, which means a team’s payroll lives within a specific band. And the band that MLB is rumored to be proposing at some point, per Jon Heyman, is laughable.

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Notes: WNBA proposal, angry MLB owners, weird MLBPA licensing

The WNBA finally made a counterproposal, MLB owners are mad about Kyle Tucker, and the MLBPA made a curious licensing deal.

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It took over six weeks, but the WNBA finally countered the last proposal sent in by the Women’s National Basketball Player’s Association. In case you haven’t been following along closely, the holdup was that the league didn’t feel that the last PA proposal was different enough to merit a counter, and was basically waiting for the union to blink and send in a different one that had more concessions in it. Which is cute since it’s not like the WNBA has exactly been willing to concede much, to the point that, in December, the players gave the bargaining team strike authorization with 93 percent of the members voting, and 98 percent of those voting to authorize one if the seven-player executive committee deemed it necessary.

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WNBA’s CBA deadline looms, USL’s already passed, and the PHPA struck

The WNBPA and USLPA might want to take a cue from the PHPA and their recently successful — and brief — ECHL strike.

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There has been and continues to be a whole lot of discussion about the labor battles that might occur when the MLB collective bargaining agreement expires in December, and for good reason. Comparatively, though, that story is on the backburner, as the players and owners haven’t actually started to bargain for real, other than laying out some preliminary goals before the true negotiations take place.

Meanwhile, the Women’s National Basketball Association and the WNB Players Association have already blown through an extension on their current CBA and are days away from another deadline without any resolution. United Soccer League Championship, or USL Championship, has been at odds with its players for 494 days now — the union and league have been bargaining for their new CBA since August of 2024, and it expired with the coming of this new year. And that’s for a league where the players are hoping to make a livable wage, not “millions,” mirroring the fight of MLB’s minor-league players from earlier this decade, where they simply wanted to be paid as if their job was a job, and not have to worry about their next meal or their living conditions.

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Notes: White Sox signing, WNBPA strike authorization, NWSL cap issue

The White Sox made a signing that is both sensible and very White Sox, the WNBPA authorized a strike if necessary, and the NWSL is dealing with salary cap and star player concerns.

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The White Sox signed Nippon Professional Baseball’s Munetaka Murakami over the weekend, after he was posted by the Yakult Swallows last month. The deal is for two years and $34 million, which might not sound like all that much when you think of all the headlines about his prodigious power and his being just 25 years old, but there are genuine concerns with his ability to succeed in MLB, concerns which are obviously shared widely given he ended up signing with the White Sox for this specific contract.

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