Senator Josh Hawley Blasts MLB Over Pride Night Hat Warnings for Christian Players

Senator Josh Hawley is taking Major League Baseball to task — and he wants answers from the top.

The Missouri Republican, 46, sent a letter to MLB Commissioner Robert Manfred demanding an explanation after three San Francisco Giants players were issued formal warnings for inscribing a Bible verse on their Pride Night caps.

Hawley told Manfred he was writing “with grave concern over your reported decision to issue a formal warning to three Major League Baseball (MLB) players for publicly expressing their Christian faith,” per the letter published on his Senate website, Tuesday, June 16.

The pitchers in question — Landen Roupp, J.T. Brubaker and Ryan Walker — each wrote a variation of Genesis 9:12-16 on their hats during the Giants’ Pride Night, Us Weekly reported Wednesday, June 17. The passage references the rainbow as a sign of God’s covenant with Noah. A fourth player, Sam Hentges, declined to wear the hat entirely. None of the four players were fined or faced any formal disciplinary action beyond the warning, per the outlet.

Hawley didn’t stop at the hat incident, invoking the league’s own conduct during the 2020 season as evidence of selective enforcement. “In 2020, MLB itself turned its uniforms and its fields into a billboard for political and social messages,” he wrote, pointing to jersey patches and mound stenciling tied to the Black Lives Matter movement as examples of messaging the league itself had sanctioned.

“MLB has said this is a content-neutral policy and that MLB ‘respect[s] players’ right to free expression.’ But this is dubious,” Hawley argued, “given that MLB is openly promoting a political viewpoint and possibly compelling adherence to that viewpoint.”

MLB pushed back, with a spokesperson clarifying Tuesday, June 16 that the warning issued to the Giants pitchers had “absolutely nothing to do” with the specific content written on the hats. “We respect players’ right to free expression,” the league said, per the report. “We have given the same warning numerous times in the past to players for messages such as ‘Dad,’ ‘Happy Mother’s Day, I Love Mom’ and names of family members.”

Hawley closed his letter with a broader appeal: “The freedom to live out one’s faith does not end at the ballpark gate.