Protests spread across sports
Making their strongest statement yet in the fight against racial injustice, players from six NBA teams decided not to play postseason games Wednesday in a protest that quickly reverberated across other professional leagues.
Players made the extraordinary decisions to protest the shooting by police in Kenosha, Wis., on Sunday of Jacob Blake, a Black man, apparently in the back while three of his children were near.
Kenosha is about 40 miles south of Milwaukee. That city’s NBA team, the Bucks, started the boycotts Wednesday by refusing to emerge from their locker room to play a playoff game against the Orlando Magic.
MLB: Games between the Cincinnati Reds and Brewers in Milwaukee, Seattle Mariners and Padres in San Diego and the Dodgers and Giants in San Francisco were called off hours before they were set to begin — two days before MLB was set to celebrate Jackie Robinson Day.
Other MLB games had finished, were in progress or just about to start as the announcements were made. Some players, such as outfielders Jason Heyward of the Cubs and Matt Kemp of the Rockies, sat out while their teams played.
All three postponed games are scheduled to be made up as doubleheaders Thursday.
WNBA: In Bradenton, Florida, in the WNBA bubble, Washington was set to play Atlanta, Minnesota was going to face Los Angeles, and Connecticut was going to meet Phoenix. Players from the Mystics, Dream, Sparks and Lynx were talking on the court for about an hour deciding whether to play or not. The decision was announced shortly before the expected 7 p.m. EDT tip for the Mystics and Dream.
All four teams took a knee at center court right before leaving the court.
The Mystics came into the arena wearing shirts that spelled out Blake’s name on the front and had holes in the back to signify the seven bullets with which the 29yearold Black man was hit by police.
Tennis: Fourthseeded Naomi Osaka reached the semifinals of the
Western & Southern Open in New York and withdrew a few hours later in a call for racial justice, drawing quick support from other players. Soon after, the whole tournament was put on hold for a day.
Osaka tweeted that as a Black woman, she feels compelled to pull out of the tournament to put a focus on police shooting Black people.
NFL: Pete Carroll applauded the protests and didn’t rule out the idea of NFL players taking similar action this fall.
“Anything’s possible,” the Seahawks’ head coach said. “As I mentioned to the players, this is the season of protest.”
More than a dozen Seattle players sat on sideline benches during the playing of the national anthem Wednesday afternoon before the team’s second mock game of training camp, played in front of 72,000 empty seats at CenturyLink Field.