The 2020 season is here, and with it, the controversy over whether to kneel.
Maybe there’s something in the air, something unique to the Bay Area’s blend of breezes from around the world, blown through the Golden Gate carrying fragrances of freedom, justice and outrage.
One whiff of that air can bring you to your knees.
Monday night, in a practice game against the Oakland A’s at the Coliseum, new Giants manager Gabe Kapler and at least nine other Giants — players and coaches — took a knee either on the field or in the bullpen during the national anthem. Tuesday night at Oracle Park, the number increased to a dozen.
This reinforced the Bay Area’s standing as the sports world’s leader in kneeling and political protest.
Kapler is believed to be the first coach or manager in any of the four major sports — NFL, MLB, NBA and NHL — to join the anthem protest movement started in 2016 by then49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick.
The makeshift baseball season opens Thursday — the Giants play the dreaded Dodgers in Los Angeles — and experts agree that the Giants will be one of baseball’s bottomfeeders. But Kapler and his crew have already made a major impact.
That’s business as usual for this part of the world. From Kaepernick to Kapler. The Bay Area athletic community continues to lead the way in rejecting the demand to — as one TV pundit put it — “shut up and dribble.”
Quietly and calmly, Kapler made it clear he does not intend to shut up and manage. That stance is not riskfree. Kapler’s hiring in November was widely criticized (including by this writer), so he is a managerontrial from Day 1.
And even in the liberal Bay Area, there is risk in taking a political stand that many consider unpatriotic and disrespectful. (See: Kaepernick, still unemployed.) Many still demand: “Stick to sports!”
Bruce Maxwell, the former A’s catcher who had been the
only MLB player to take a knee back in 2017, told USA Today that Kapler’s kneeldown was “a big step. For somebody in that position to put his title aside, to make himself vulnerable in that situation and stand for what is right, is big for humanity.”
Monday night’s game also was significant because of a nonprotest event. The Giants’ Alyssa Nakken, the first female coach in MLB history, coached first base for the last few innings (then began the game at first Tuesday).
When was the last time baseball fans (in their living rooms, because this year’s games are being played with no fans in attendance) cheered and maybe shed a tear for a firstbase coach?
Monday’s game had to be the most meaningful Giants game since the 2014 World Series.
It is significant that Monday’s kneelers — along with Jaylin Davis, the only African American on the team, and Black coach Antoan Richardson — included at least five white players and two white coaches, plus Kapler. Tuesday night, Pablo Sandoval, Hunter Pence and Mauricio Dubon joined the kneelers.
Prior to Monday, the only white player in a major American pro sport to take a knee since Kaepernick invented that style of protest is thought to have been Seth DeValve, a Cleveland Browns tight end, in 2017.
Of course, the Memorial Day killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police upped the protest ante. Protestwise, this is a new day, and the Bay Area sports community seems bent on continuing to lead the way in seeking a brand new status quo.
A brief Bay Area timeline, postKaepernick:
In 2017, Stephen Curry, speaking for his team, announced that the Warriors would not visit the White House if invited. In response, President Trump disinvited the team (no invitation had been offered).
Warriors coach Steve Kerr regularly criticizes lawmakers for a failure to enact meaningful guncontrol legislation. Kerr has widened his comments, including on his Twitter feed, to include criticism of Trump.
49ers team president Jed York publicly supported Kaepernick and the right to protest when he was still a 49er (although former 49ers safety Eric Reid claims York asked him not to kneel). York and the 49ers have twice made $1 million commitments to socialjustice causes (in 2016 and again in May, five days after Floyd’s death).
Curry put pressure on the president of apparel maker Under Armour, which sells Curry’s sneakers, to back off praise for Trump.
Oakland native Marshawn Lynch, a running back for the Raiders in 201718, sat on the bench or stayed in the locker room during the national anthem, although he never explained his protest — if it was a protest.
When Maxwell took a knee in September 2017, the A’s issued a statement in support. He played 18 games in 2018 but has not played in the majors since. Like Kaepernick, Maxwell feels he has been blackballed by his sport.
The Giants’ silent protests did not come without criticism. Trump harrumphed via Twitter early Tuesday, “Looking forward to live sports, but any time I witness a player kneeling during the National Anthem, a sign of great disrespect for our Country and our Flag, the game is over for me!”
Kapler’s response to Trump’s tweet: “I guess my response is, I don’t see (protesting) as disrespect at all. I see nothing more American than standing up for what you believe in. I see nothing more patriotic than peaceful protest when things are frustrating and upsetting. And finally, there’s nobody that should make us stop doing the right thing. Doesn’t matter what leader says they’re not going to be following a game. What matters the most is that we’re unwavering in trying to do what’s right, and what guides our decision is standing up for people who need us to stand up for them.”
A columnist for Deadspin, Carron J. Phillips, ripped Kapler, under the subtle headline, “Baseball’s Performative Wokeness is Fake As Hell.”
Wrote Phillips of Kapler, “It took a 44yearold white man — born and raised in the same state where police beat Rodney King and the L.A. riots occurred — until 2020 to get to a place where he ‘wasn’t pleased with the way our country has handled police brutality,’ leading to him finally deciding to do some good with his whiteness.”
Well, some people are born woke, others achieve that state along the road of life. If membership in the Woke Club is closed to the latter, what’s the point of the protests? For Kapler and the nouveau
woke, the proof will be in the pudding, in ongoing involvement and action. For instance, will Kapler bring more diversity to his 14person coaching staff, which has one white woman and one Black man?
Hey, the Giants are thin at catcher, with Buster Posey out. Maxwell has been playing in Mexico and reportedly has a live bat. Just sayin’.