A few weeks ago, the San Francisco Giants made themselves the center of the baseball world with their annual “Pride night” uniform tradition.
Several players objected to wearing specific rainbow-colored hats, with a few writing Bible verses next to the logo, and one pitcher wearing the traditional Giants hat instead. Major League Baseball then issued a warning, setting off a firestorm of controversy, criticism and a referral for an investigation from the United States Department of Justice Civil Rights Division.
In response to a letter from Sen. Josh Hawley, the league also acknowledged that the Giants did not properly communicate with its players that they cannot be forced to wear “pride” hats. An unsurprising revelation, considering the Giants organization likely does not want to receive criticism from the far-left sportswriters who cover the sport and the team, as well as ideologically motivated fans, if not enough players wear the hats.
For most fans, there’s an obvious disconnect. The Giants organization wants to virtue signal to the political left, and many professional baseball players are religious Christians who don’t feel comfortable wearing pride-themed hats. There’s nothing wrong with that, of course — it’s a free country. Unless you’re a left-wing sportswriter, then everyone must comply with your views or be labeled a “bigot.”
One of those left-wing sportswriters is Susan Slusser, a Giants beat reporter who is not shy about sharing her political ideology. She did so again in a recent interview with Larry Krueger, a guest host on local KNBR radio show Murph & Markus.
“Susan, you’ve been doing this for a while. You’ve covered teams beyond the Giants, and you have a good sense for baseball and the players because you talk to them routinely,” Krueger brought up. “We were getting into the details of the Giants’ decisions, Pride Night, the communication, and all of that. But if we back away a little bit, has the Giants organization done real damage in the eyes of players?
“Are they going to have a hard time attracting players because other players are looking at these guys being called bigots and attacked in the media for either not wearing the hat or writing biblical verses? Do you think, long term, the Giants are going to have a hard time attracting free agents because of what happened this year?”
A reasonable question. Krueger is correct in identifying that many MLB players are religious and may not want to be forced into compelled speech by their employer when they have other options. Jacob deGrom infamously was reportedly happy to leave New York for Texas, in part because of New York’s political extremism and COVID-19 restrictions, as just one example. But Slusser was furious.
“I mean, bigoted free agents, maybe, I guess,” Slusser answered.
“Look, Sam Hentges was the guy whose comments after that game, he chose to wear the regular Giants hat and not write a Bible verse, which is probably the right way to go about it, I think,” she added. “Afterwards, he kind of held forth about morals and things like that, and it was pretty distasteful, some of those comments, to the LGBTQ community. He was a free agent who chose to sign in San Francisco. Probably not uppermost in your mind is thinking, ‘The Giants wear a Pride hat every year,’ but it is part and parcel, and he signed here.”
What a surprise, a liberal sportswriter’s view is that it’s “bigoted” to have religious views that contradict what one community thinks. She wasn’t done.
“Certainly, it’s not a secret that San Francisco has a huge gay community, many gay fans,” she said. “To me, this is a little bit on the players. If you don’t want to be a part of that, A, maybe don’t openly insult your paying customers after a game, but B, don’t sign here.
“Maybe that will happen. I don’t know. But that just seems honestly kinda crazy to me. You know where you’re coming. This is San Francisco. It’s not a secret.”
There’s several issues with her framing that are, unsurprisingly, hypocritical. There is zero doubt, absolutely zero doubt, that if a devoutly Muslim player refused to wear the pride hat, Slusser would never even consider criticizing them for it. She would never say, “don’t sign here” to a Muslim athlete for say, the 49ers, who didn’t want to celebrate San Francisco’s LGBTQ community.
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Not that Slusser cares or is interested because her moral high horse is far too tall to allow for much research, but Hentges was non-tendered by the Cleveland Guardians after the 2025 season. That means he was under team control, for a limited salary, and they chose to release him anyway. His options in free agency, then, were certainly limited. Players on the fringes of a roster are the epitome of beggars can’t be choosers. Should Hentges have chosen unemployment instead of a contract because the Giants play in San Francisco and their organization is terrified of people like Slusser?
The other issue? Slusser would never apply the “don’t openly insult your paying customers” line in the other direction. The Los Angeles Dodgers insulted their Catholic paying customers by honoring a drag group that parades around as nuns and mocks their religion. Not only did Slusser not care about that, she wrote a column celebrating the Dodgers for their decision and called offended protesters “Anti-LGBT” for daring to hold religious views. Of course she did, because she is a political ideologue first and foremost.
Slusser exemplifies the mindset on the left, those who pretend not to understand things, thus making discourse impossible. To her, the pride hats are simply to welcome the LGBTQ community to the stadium. To Christian ballplayers, it’s more than that, it’s a celebration of certain views and behavior that they accept and tolerate, but don’t want to celebrate. She won’t understand their views because she doesn’t want to. Ironically, the most bigoted person here is Slusser herself. And if she’s offended by Christians, she simply shouldn’t go to baseball games. After all, that’s her advice to free agents, right?
