Hi gay!

We’re now roughly halfway through Pride month; coincidentally, we’re approaching the halfway point of the 2026 Major League Baseball season. With all that in mind, MLB teams from coast to coast will host Pride-themed games¹ this month, which purport to welcome LGBTQ+ fans with the idea that baseball is for everyone.

San Francisco’s Pride game took place last night, with the Giants hosting (and ultimately losing to) the Chicago Cubs. The headlines that crossed my news feeds today were not about the home team tacking yet another loss to this season’s tote board, though. The big story instead was about several pitchers altering their Pride ball caps with a biblical reference, or otherwise outright eschewing them for the standard team cap. To wit, the S.F. Chronicle’s landing page for Giants coverage this afternoon:

Let’s be truthful: this isn’t surprising. Despite some progress, professional sports are still a bastion of homophobia. This bible reference bit has also happened with other MLB teams in the last couple of years. The reference in question comes from Genesis 9:12-16, which in a nutshell interprets a rainbow as a sign from God symbolizing a promise to never destroy all life with a flood that covers the earth². You know, like the flood that led Noah to build an ark large enough to accommodate his family, two of every animal, and a full time cruise director named Julie.

From my perspective, there are a couple of issues at play here. One has to do with team unity via uniform standards, but that hill is short with lousy views and so I’m not willing to die on it at the moment. The bigger issue is the subtext of using a biblical reference on this specific cap. Here in the States, Christianity has been weaponized against LGBTQ+ people for ages, and has been used to justify anti-LGBTQ+ legislation.

In a way, this is a passive-aggressive form of LGBTQ+ erasure, no matter how the players in question try to frame it. Of course I don’t know the players personally, nor can I claim to know their true feelings toward the LGBTQ+ community at large. Given the precedence and the decline in support for LGBTQ+ issues, I can’t help but assume some amount of ill-intent.

Having attended many MLB games myself, including Pride nights, I’m all too familiar with how some fans negatively react to the mere mention of anything gay. To be clear, I enjoy myself anytime I go to a ball game; but into every large gathering, a little asshole must show up. Such is life.

Despite the situation, some good is coming out of Pride nights this baseball season. Atlanta Braves pitcher Spencer Strider appeared at a Pride night event to welcome LGBTQ+ fans to the game. Across the country in Los Angeles, the Dodgers unveiled a permanent memorial to former players Glenn Burke and Billy Bean. (Burke passed away in 1995, Bean two years ago.)

1. Well, except for that one team in Texas, which to date has never hosted one. In fairness, Pride nights are not mandated by MLB; the other 29 teams do so of their own accord. ↩︎
2. Bear in mind this is a very basic interpretation of the verses as written in the New International Version. By no stretch of the imagination am I a biblical scholar. ↩︎