AROUND THE HORN
Giants: San Francisco manager Gabe Kapler said Friday he will refuse to take the field for the national anthem in a protest over the nation’s political direction following this week’s school shooting in Texas. “I don’t plan on coming out for the anthem going forward until I feel better about the direction of our country,” Kapler said before a series opener at Cincinnati. “I don’t expect it to move the needle necessarily. It’s just something that I feel strongly enough about to take that step.” Kapler said he needs more time to consider specific actions he might suggest be taken to prevent more tragedies of this type, such as stronger gun control laws. Kapler said that on the day of the shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, “I knew that I was not in my best place mentally and I knew that it was in connection with some of the hypocrisies for the national anthem and how it coincided with the moment of silence and how two things didn’t synch up well for me, but I couldn’t make sense of it in real time and it took me a couple of days to pull all my thoughts together.”
Reds-giants: Cincinnati Reds outfielder Tommy Pham and San Francisco Giants outfielder Joc Pederson were involved in a brief altercation before Friday’s series opener at Great American Ball Park. While the Giants were warming up in the outfield, Pham confronted Pederson in the outfield during pregame warmups. The pair quickly were separated and no punches were thrown. The incident was witnessed by reporters and occurred before fans entered the ballpark.
Dodgers: Gil Hodges, who helped the Dodgers win World Series titles in
Brooklyn and Los Angeles, will have his No. 14 jersey retired. The pregame ceremony will take place on June 4, when the New York Mets visit Dodger Stadium. Hodges played his final two seasons with the Mets in 1962 and ’63. His 96-yearold widow, Joan, still lives in Brooklyn. He joins Walter Alston, Roy Campanella, Don Drysdale, Jim Gilliam, Sandy Koufax, Tommy Lasorda, Jackie Robinson, Duke Snider, Don Sutton and Pee Wee Reese among Dodgers players and managers to have their numbers retired in left field. Hodges will be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame on July 24. He was voted in by the veterans committee. During his 16 years with the Dodgers in Brooklyn and Los Angeles, Hodges helped the team win World Series titles in 1955 and ’59. He was an eight-time All-star. From 1949-55, he drove in over 100 runs per season. Hodges died in 1972 at age 47, when he was managing the Mets. He guided the team to the 1969 World Series title.
MLB: Major League Baseball told its clubs that some are failing to provide acceptable work accommodations for female employees, calling them “embarrassingly below” standard. The May 20 memorandum from Michael Hill, the MLB senior vice president for on-field operations, asks teams to provide documentation by June 3 of the facilities for home and visiting female coaches and staff. Hill told teams to comply with MLB regulations “as soon as possible.” The memo was first reported by ESPN and was obtained by The Associated Press. San Francisco Giants assistant coach Alyssa Nakken this year became the first woman hired as an on-field coach of a major league teams.