The San Francisco Giants held their annual Pride Night last week to honor the LGBTQ+ community. The celebration included 10 gay couples renewing their wedding vows and a drag queen standing along the first base line.
Four Christian ballplayers on the Giants chose to make a statement about their faith. While all the other players wore a “Pride” hat (a Giants hat with a rainbow patch attached), one pitcher, Sam Hentges, wore his regular Giants cap without the rainbow.
Three other Giants pitchers — Landon Roupp, JT Brubaker and Ryan Walker — wore the Pride hat, but cited Bible verses next to the rainbow logo.
Hentges added: “It’s just something that I feel like I was forced to support when I don’t morally support it. There wasn’t hatred behind it. I think that’s kind of something that’s misinterpreted. I don’t hate the LGBTQ community.”
Grant Brisbee of The Athletic wrote a scathing column demonizing the Christian ballplayers. “This was another tone-deaf response to what should have been a moment for community unity,” he wrote. “They made the night about ‘us versus them.’ That’s the only thing they could see.”
Actually, it is Brisbee who made the night “us versus them.” He refused to consider the viewpoint of the Christian ballplayers, who gave what seems a reasonable explanation for their actions.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Fifty years ago, Giants’ relief pitcher Gary Lavelle became a born-again Christian, in the winter of 1976. When he returned to the club the next year, he gradually and quietly began to share his faith with his teammates when they showed an interest.
Several, including Bob Knepper, Jack Clark, Rob Andrews and Randy Moffitt (brother of tennis great Billie Jean King) came to faith, and by the 1978 season there were eight or nine professing Christians on the team.
The Giants, who had suffered through several losing seasons, came to life that year and led the National League West for much of the season, only to fade in a September swoon and finish third.
In postgame interviews, the players frequently thanked God for the ability he gave them, and the press raised no objection.
But when the Giants’ fortunes faded on the field in 1979, the media was quick to blame the born-again players, claiming their newfound faith had made them passive. The press derisively referred to them as the God Squad.
The cornerstone of that accusation was a quote attributed to pitcher Knepper, who supposedly told manager Dave Bristol it was “God’s will” when he yielded a home run that lost a game.
Knepper and his Christian teammates have always denied the quote, as did Bristol. But the false story continued to hound them for years.
In 1978, Lavelle had stirred controversy when he said, “God says homosexuality is a sin. You have to understand this. I condemn the sin, not the sinner. I still have friends who are homosexuals. I’m their friend, but I tell them God says it’s a sin.”
Lavelle was castigated by the media and the fans for his stance.
Not only did the media blame the God Squad for losing, it also alleged that the Christian athletes had caused division in the clubhouse, and had provoked the firing of two managers. These false claims spread to the national media, which repeated them.
One of the more ridiculous accusations was that the Giants had two team buses to take players to the field — one for the God Squad, and another for the other players.
In nearly half a century, the baseball world has become far more tolerant and supportive of the LGBTQ+ community.
But it has yet to extend the same tolerance toward Christian athletes who take pride in their faith without imposing it on others.
Matt Sieger is the author of The God Squad: The Born-Again San Francisco Giants of 1978 and In My Humble Opinion: Musings of a Sports Columnist.
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