MLB strikes out with Bible verse uniform warning

During a cool Friday evening earlier this month, three San Francisco Giants pitchers walked onto the team’s field wearing non-approved ballcaps. Team leaders had promoted the game as Pride Night and required players to don caps with rainbow-colored logos. But the three players altered their attire, adding to their team-issued rainbow hats references to Genesis 9:12-16, a Bible passage that tells of the rainbow covenant God made with Noah after the flood.

Since that June 12 game, politicians, federal organizations, and religious advocacy groups have criticized Major League Baseball for warning the players that their actions violated the league’s uniform policy. While legal experts say the sports league did not violate constitutionally protected rights, they say MLB’s action could pose a problem under the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

“There’s no hate at all, it’s just what I stand for,” starting pitcher Landen Roupp told reporters after the game, adding that he was grateful to live in a country where he has the freedom to believe and express what he wants. “I’m just thankful that God’s put me in this situation, and that I can go out and share His kingdom.”

Relief pitchers J.T. Brubaker and Ryan Walker also decorated their caps with references to Bible passages, and reliever Sam Hentges chose not to wear the Pride Night cap, later telling reporters he was morally against the cap’s message.

The Bible references soon drew both backlash and support on social media—LGBTQ advocates labeled the move as disrespectful, while Christians praised the players for their public religious expression.

MLB Chief Communications Officer Pat Courtney told The Athletic that the writing on the caps violated MLB’s rules. Players received a warning for a first offense and could face disciplinary action for a second one. In a later statement, MLB said the warning had nothing to do with the content of the message on the caps. Instead, “writing of any kind, with any message” is prohibited on equipment and uniforms, MLB said. Hentges did not receive a warning for opting out of wearing the hat.

Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., alleged MLB appeared to be engaging in a pattern of discrimination against Christian players because it didn’t equally enforce its rules regarding messages on uniforms. He cited MLB’s decision to suspend its rules in 2020 to allow players to display Black Lives Matter slogans on their equipment.

Hawley asked the league to provide him with copies of its uniform policies and a list of each instance in the past five years where players were disciplined for breaking these regulations. Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway also sent a letter to MLB, threatening to open an investigation into the organization.

In a response to Hawley, MLB said the Giants’ players had the right to opt out of wearing the Pride uniforms. But it claimed that Giants leaders did not clearly communicate the right to opt out this year, causing some players to add the messages to their hats.

On Friday, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier announced a formal probe into accusations that the league is engaging in religious discrimination. “If MLB applauds ideological messages it prefers while reprimanding expressions of Christian faith, that is not neutral rule enforcement—it is religious discrimination that cannot stand in Florida,” Uthmeier said.

Vice President J.D. Vance even weighed in on MLB’s warning in an X post, contending, “Trump won we don’t have to do this anymore.”

Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon also said last week she had asked the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to investigate MLB for violating the Civil Rights Act. The act bars the league from “unreasonably burdening the rights of players with religious objections to serving as the League’s vehicle for pro-Pride messages,” Dhillon wrote in a letter to MLB.

Amid the national attention, Walker and Brubaker defended their actions to The California Post. “I expected some of those [negative] comments, but did I expect it to get this big? Not necessarily,” Walker said. “At the end of the day, we stood for what we believe in.”

First Amendment rights aren’t in play in this situation for the pitchers, said Josh Blackman, a constitutional law professor at the South Texas College of Law Houston. Individuals’ speech rights are bound up only in actions from the government—whether that’s at the local, state, or federal level. MLB is a private entity, meaning this “is a cultural issue for sure, but not a constitutional one,” Blackman said.

The players could potentially argue that the league religiously discriminated against them under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Blackman said. Title VII requires employers to provide reasonable accommodations for employees’ sincerely held religious beliefs, practices, or observances. Blackman suspects a reasonable accommodation would mean allowing the players to opt out of wearing the hats, as Hentges did. But it’s unlikely that players can dictate what messages their hats say, he added.

While some politicians argued the league enforced its rules in a discriminatory way, Aaron Terr, director of public advocacy at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, said that was likely not the case.

MLB said it has not allowed any messages in the past, including “Happy Mother’s Day” and “Dad.” While Florida’s and Missouri’s attorneys general cited the Black Lives Matter messaging, Terr said that situation was different as the message was “negotiated and approved in advance as part of a league initiative.”

National sports associations have a history of similar controversies. In 2023, several National Hockey League players refused to wear Pride-themed jerseys during pregame warmups. NHL responded by deciding players would not wear special jerseys for pregame warmups the following season.

Terr cautioned that government officials who have threatened action against MLB seem to overstep their authority. “Is it possible that they uncover some evidence of a discriminatory application of the uniform policy? It’s possible, but based on what I’ve seen so far, I haven’t seen evidence on that,” he said. “And it feels a little bit like a politically motivated fishing expedition.”

Hal Frampton, an attorney at Alliance Defending Freedom, said that if MLB has only enforced its uniform policy against religious messages, “then that would be textbook religious discrimination.”

He encouraged professional athletes and all private sector employees to remember that they have rights in the workplace, even if the First Amendment doesn’t apply to them.

“[These players] are standing up boldly to say, this is our faith, and that we should be able to be accommodated with that faith in the workplace,” Frampton said. “Sports leagues and other employers are going to have to deal with the fact that they can’t just assume that religious employees are going to speak messages that they disagree with, like putting on a uniform that says something about the world and about human sexuality.”