The truth is that if my employer told me to wear a MAGA hat as part of my job, I'd quit. That was my initial reaction to what happened this month with the SF Giants, when three of the team's pitchers took the mound on Pride Night with their caps altered in protest.
Landen Roupp, JT Brubaker and Ryan Walker wrote bible verse references on their rainbow-logo caps for the Giants' annual Pride Night on June 12 at Oracle Park, with most players wearing hats that had the team's iconic interlocking "SF" logo in rainbow colors.
The reference was a passage from Genesis that describes the rainbow as a sign of God's covenant after the flood. Some opponents of gay rights have used that verse as a rallying call to "reclaim" the rainbow from queer people. (To which I say: Good luck to you. 🌈)
As a San Franciscan and proud queer man, many of my feelings actually align with not enforcing dress codes that make statements you don't support. But then of course I got to the comments. These are from a recent post on social media.
That's a lot like saying "Go back to Mexico." Or that queer expression should happen in literally half a square mile in the whole of San Francisco.
Yeah it's almost as if gay people are a minority, and their voices aren't as amplified as the four other players who stood on a mound in protest against them. (A fourth pitcher, Sam Hentges, skipped the rainbow cap altogether and wore the classic black and orange.)
Not sure Janet, but we celebrated 1.9 million heterosexuals getting married last year. We celebrate them in nearly every love song ever recorded. By majority we're celebrating you on the Kiss Cam, which means we applauded your love at 2,430 Major League Baseball games in 2025 alone. We celebrate them constantly in film and television; the world's most famous performers continue to be heterosexual.
But you're right that we haven't thrown you a parade.
So I thought historically, sports were a way for neighboring societies to compete without going to war. It's not as simple as entertainment.
But what stuck with me about this comment is that baseball is "supposed to be an all-inclusive type of thing." You're right, and I actually love a ballgame, but I have frankly never felt safe being expressively gay at one. Sports fans are quite often loud and violent, and they're not afraid to get in your face about their feelings. Which brings me to the next comment.
Bryan Stow was a paramedic and father of two from Santa Cruz who drove down to Los Angeles for Opening Day on March 31, 2011, to watch the Giants play the Dodgers. He wore his Giants gear to Dodger Stadium, and he and his friends were taunted for it. After the game, Stow was knocked unconscious and his head struck the concrete; a Dodgers fan kicked him in the head at least three times while others held Stow's friends back from helping.
To put this in perspective: this was straight-on-straight violence, and it absolutely happened because of what a man was wearing. I was a young journalist covering this story when it happened fifteen years ago, and I have scarcely been to a baseball game since.
So while I don't really care that much about four pitchers' act of protest—and can even support them in some ways—their actions have encouraged an expected kind of bigotry that still keeps me from entering rooms. Even though I'm the sort of person who defies that.
Saul Sugarman is editor-in-chief and owner of The Bold Italic.
The Bold Italic is a not-for-profit media organization, and we publish first-person perspectives about San Francisco and the Bay Area. We operate under a fiscal sponsorship of a 501(c)(3).
You can become a paid subscriber. Or donate. Or learn more about us.
