Posted on July 30, 2020

MLB Loves BLM

Robert Hampton, American Renaissance, July 30, 2020

Conservatives’ favorite sport is embracing Black Lives Matter. Major League Baseball players and teams are wearing BLM shirts, spreading BLM propaganda, and kneeling for the national anthem.

Black Lives Matter was an oppressive presence on Opening Day last week. The Washington Nationals and Los Angeles Dodgers stenciled “BLM” on their pitchers’ mounds. The entire Nationals team and their opponents, the New York Yankees, took a knee during the National Anthem and held a long black ribbon as they listened to Morgan Freeman give a speech on racial justice. Many other teams performed the same ritual. The official MLB Twitter account celebrated.

The MLB account also defended kneeling from critics.

The account also tweeted out other messages.

The league let players wear “Black Lives Matter” warm-up shirts and put BLM-related patches on their jerseys. One patch is of an altered MLB logo in which the silhouetted player is black. It reads “BLM.”

The Boston Red Sox put up a Black Lives Matter billboard in the team’s signature font outside Fenway Park. Red Sox spokeswoman Zineb Curran explained: “Recognizing that we have work to do ourselves, we wanted to show that we stand with those who are working to achieve racial equity.”

Some team tweets had nothing to do with sports.

Breonna Taylor was a black woman police shot in Louisville, Kentucky, in May. The Red Sox retweeted.

The Rays’ account announced the team donated $100,000 to black advocacy groups. It also tweeted “systemic racism is real” alongside a timeline about slavery and segregation that featured a black-power fist.

There was at least one MLB player who didn’t kneel: San Francisco Giants pitcher Sam Coonrod. Unlike his teammates, Mr. Coonrod stood for the anthem and didn’t wear a social justice patch. “I’m a Christian,” he said. “So I just believe that I can’t kneel before anything besides God.” He added that he opposed BLM’s “Marxism” and hostility to the nuclear family.

The press scorned him.

  • “If Coonrod kneels only for God, then he can pray silently for an end to police abuses and foul treatment of people based on assumptions about skin color,” wrote Sporting News writer Tom Gatto.
  • “Let me make this clear,” tweeted NBC Sports Bay Area analyst Ian Williams. You don’t have to be on board with BLACK LIVES MATTER. But I do need you to be on board with EQUALITY FOR ALL and ENDING RACISM. It’s simple. If you don’t want those 2 simple things you know what you are.”
  • “When did real Christianity opt out of humanity?” asked NBC Sports writer Monte Pool. “Give a pass to injustice and inequality? Decide that it’s disrespectful to offer support, if not shelter, to those in need? Does Coonrod not realize that pastors of all faiths are joining crowds around the world fighting for these very ideals?”
  • Sports Illustrated writer Dan Gartland said that “taking a stand against inequality shouldn’t be controversial” and argued Mr. Coonrod should’ve knelt because the demonstration wasn’t really a protest. “It was a carefully constructed display coordinated and approved by Major League Baseball,” Mr. Gartland wrote. Like other sports writers, he also lectured Mr. Coonrod about his religion: “If a central tenet of Christianity is treating others with love and respect, it’s not clear how not joining a call for just that would be hypocritical.”

Many other pro sports support BLM. The NFL, the NBA, NASCAR, and prominent athletes released videos endorsing BLM. Entire teams marched with BLM protesters this summer. The NFL reversed its kneeling ban, NASCAR banished the Confederate flag, and the Washington Redskins changed their name.

MLB is considered one of the more conservative sports. MLB fans are disproportionately Republican. It’s long been the favorite sport of several conservative commentators. Before the 2020 season, just one player in the entire league knelt for the anthem. Now, MLB is arguably the most slavishly boot-licking sport in America. The NBA may soon take that spot when it begins its season this week.

President Donald Trump said MLB would be “over” for him if players knelt for the anthem. He hasn’t said anything about the mass kneelings, but he did cancel his appearance at an upcoming Yankees game. The President didn’t mention the anthem protests – he cited coronavirus.

Prominent conservative baseball lovers have chosen to overlook the sport’s truckling. American Enterprise Institute fellow Matthew Continetti simply praised baseball’s return as an “escape from world events” and a return to normalcy. National Review writer Dan McLaughlin, who goes by “Baseball Crank” on Twitter, ignored the BLM protests in his column, instead wondering whether games this season will be low scoring. He tweeted a meek complaint about the Rays call for murder charges against Breonna Taylor’s “killers:”

Conservatives are signaling that sports leagues can promote left-wing causes without worrying about a reaction. Conservatives will still watch the games and buy the merchandise. It’s a surrender of our culture to the Left.

No matter how much you love baseball, you shouldn’t support a sport that tells you directly: “This country is racist. We support an anti-American, anti-white movement.” Turn off your TV and play catch with your friends and family.