Teams take a knee as MLB begins belated season
Several kneel for victims of coronavirus, social justice issues
TWASHINGTON he 200-yard black cloth stretched along the foul lines, starting at one edge of the outfield, wrapping around home plate and extending to the other side of the diamond. It was held by coaches and players from both the Washington Nationals and the New York Yankees, all spaced out, as a message recorded by actor Morgan Freeman played over the stadium speakers.
Then they all took a knee for 60 seconds of silence — an idea agreed upon by the Yankees in a team meeting the night before Thursday’s season opener and then shared with the Nationals. For the national anthem, both sides stood again.
Before the recorded message and the kneeling, a Black Lives Matter video produced by the Players Alliance — a new nonprofit comprising 150 current and former Black baseball players — and featuring several of baseball’s biggest stars was played on the stadium’s video board.
This was not the NBA, or WNBA or NFL, where players have been demonstrating before and during the national anthem for years.
But what happened on opening night Thursday was notable for Major League Baseball, a league that has been slow to address social issues publicly compared to many of its counterparts.
The demonstrations drew a rebuke Friday morning from Rudy Giuliani, the former New York City mayor and President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, who tweeted: “All those ball players, including the Yankees, taking a knee during the National Anthem of the country that made them millionaires is hypocritical. Support for BLM, which is provoking attacks on our law enforcement and innocent people all over America, is disgraceful.”
Those comments, which incorrectly said the Yankees knelt during the anthem and mischaracterized largely peaceful protests, were countered by Yankees President Randy Levine, who worked under Giuliani during his mayoralty.
“Rudy got it absolutely wrong,” Levine said in an interview. “The display of unity that was done last evening by our players and players across the league was beautiful, respectful and dignified. To me, it showed unity and the desire for a better world, social justice and enlightenment. I didn’t — and nobody should — take that as being disrespectful of anyone, including law enforcement.”
The idea for the cloth and the moment of unity at Nationals Park came from Andrew McCutchen, a veteran outfielder for the Philadelphia Phillies, and was organized by players without MLB’s involvement, according to a statement. They came to MLB to finalize the efforts, and similar cloths were sent to the 14 other stadiums that hosted games Thursday and Friday.
“This moment is important for all MLB players to unite and show support for one another as we begin the 2020 baseball season,” McCutchen said in a statement.
At least two dozen more players and coaches knelt during the national anthem Friday, including Chicago White Sox stars Tim Anderson and Jose Abreu and Minnesota Twins manager Rocco Baldelli.
In its own statement, MLB said it had an “open and constructive dialogue” with the Players Alliance, individual players and the players union about how players could show their support for social justice causes as the league began play after a fourmonth delay.
MLB provided shirts that said “Black Lives Matter” across the front for players to wear during batting practice. They also gave players the option to wear a patch on their jerseys that read “Black Lives Matter” or “United for Change.” The Yankees wore both on Thursday.
Teams were allowed to put a “BLM” stencil on the mound at their home ballparks, which the Nationals and Dodgers did. The league also
lifted restrictions for the season to allow players to decorate their cleats with “social justice messages and causes.”
While such coordinated public gestures from brands and sports leagues have become increasingly common in recent months, the demonstrations Thursday represented a stark departure from the norm for MLB.
Players in the NBA, WNBA and the NFL participated in a wave of demonstrations in 2016, but until Thursday only one MLB player, Bruce Maxwell, then a rookie catcher for the Oakland Athletics, had knelt during the national anthem before a regular-season game, in 2017.
Maxwell, who played professionally in Mexico last year, has said since he did not feel supported in his decision.
After Thursday’s game, Yankees outfielder Giancarlo Stanton said his teammates appreciated that the moment of unity was player-driven. He added that the players chose to kneel before the anthem, rather than during it like former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who began doing so during the 2016 season to call attention to racial injustice and police brutality. Stanton said he also knelt for racial injustice, but his teammates were entitled to do so for “any overall reason.”