Last year Major League Baseball denounced the ffort in Georgia to have honest elections. Now we have the manager of the San Fran Giants denouncing guns! This hypocrite has armed security guards protecting him and his overgrown children playing a game. If he was honest, he would get rid of all security guards in the stadium and private security for his team.
“”But I am not okay with the state of this country. I wish I hadn’t let my discomfort compromise my integrity. I wish that I could have demonstrated what I learned from my dad, that when you’re dissatisfied with your country, you let it be known through protest. The home of the brave should encourage this.”
Later on Friday, Kapler told reporters in Cincinnati that he would not be coming out onto the field for the national anthem “until I feel better about the direction of our country.”
“Obviously he needs a few years in China to appreciate the freedoms he has in this nation. Happy to say I have not watched a baseball game in years—grown men (no women in major league baseball) chasing a ball, getting paid millions, then denouncing our nation.
Lorenzo Reyes, USA TODAY, 5/27/22
The Giants played the New York Mets Tuesday night at Oracle Park in San Francisco, just hours after the shooting took place. Like much of the sporting world, moments of silence were held prior to games starting across the country. Kapler said that as the anthem played, he considered taking a knee but opted not to.
GABE KAPLER: Giants skipper shows what real patriotism looks like
“My brain said drop to a knee; my body didn’t listen,” Kapler wrote in the essay. “I wanted to walk back inside; instead I froze. I felt like a coward. I didn’t want to call attention to myself. I didn’t want to take away from the victims or their families. There was a baseball game, a rock band, the lights, the pageantry. I knew that thousands of people were using this game to escape the horrors of the world for just a little bit. I knew that thousands more wouldn’t understand the gesture and would take it as an offense to the military, to veterans, to themselves.
“But I am not okay with the state of this country. I wish I hadn’t let my discomfort compromise my integrity. I wish that I could have demonstrated what I learned from my dad, that when you’re dissatisfied with your country, you let it be known through protest. The home of the brave should encourage this.”
Later on Friday, Kapler told reporters in Cincinnati that he would not be coming out onto the field for the national anthem “until I feel better about the direction of our country.”
In 2020, Kapler and several Giants players and staff, became the first members of a Major League Baseball team to kneel during the national anthem since Bruce Maxwell in September 2017. Kapler was believed to be the first head coach in any of the four major North American sports leagues to protest racial injustice in that manner.
Kapler’s comments echo those from other sporting figures, such as Warriors coach Steve Kerr, who gave an impassioned speech advocating for gun control reform before Golden State played the Dallas Mavericks Tuesday in the Western Conference finals.
In his essay, Kapler added his voice to the chorus and lamented the influence that lobbyists hold over politicians and their legislative decisions.
“We elect our politicians to represent our interests,” Kapler wrote. “Immediately following this shooting, we were told we needed locked doors and armed teachers. We were given thoughts and prayers. We were told it could have been worse, and we just need love.
“But we weren’t given bravery, and we aren’t free. The police on the scene put a mother in handcuffs as she begged them to go in and save her children. They blocked parents trying to organize to charge in to stop the shooter, including a father who learned his daughter was murdered while he argued with the cops. We aren’t free when politicians decide that the lobbyist and gun industries are more important than our children’s freedom to go to school without needing bulletproof backpacks and active shooter drills.”
