OPINION:
If a Major League Baseball player were to get 29 hits in 30 at-bats, his batting average would be an astounding .967. He surely would not complain about making that one out.
Yet even that extraordinary batting average apparently is not good enough for the famously intolerant LGBTQ lobby.
All but one of the 30 MLB teams — namely, the Texas Rangers — have either already hosted or will host one or more LGBTQ “Pride Nights” in June, so-called Pride Month.
The Texas Rangers’ nonparticipation in this gratuitous annual in-your-face promotion of the LGBTQ agenda — having nothing to do with the national pastime — is not sitting well with those on the left who claim to be exemplars for tolerance.
Outsports.com, a website devoted to all things LGBTQ pertaining to athletics, proclaimed June 1 that “29 MLB parks are getting super gay for 2026 Pride Nights, while 1 team still refuses.” The site added, “From Pride jerseys to Pride caps, rainbows are breaking out all around baseball this June, except for the usual suspect.”
Yet it is not just attire. It is also pro-LGBTQ stadium signage and events catering to this special interest, including the Cleveland Guardians having a drag queen throw out the first pitch and the San Francisco Giants hosting an on-field renewal-of-vows ceremony for gay couples.
The Rangers’ unwillingness to conform and march in lockstep prompted one critic to complain that “one team is still clinging to the closet like it’s 1950.”
To the contrary, the Facebook page Smashmouth Baseball wrote: “Props to [the Rangers] for standing their ground.” We agree and applaud Texas for being the outlier.
Instead, the American League Western Division team on June 18 is set to host a Faith and Family Night, featuring players’ testimonies about their personal religious faith.
The difference is, there is no comparable concerted effort from conservative and religious groups to shame or browbeat the other 29 teams into holding that kind of event. Some of the 29 other teams will likely do so as well, though with much less fanfare than their “Pride Nights” get.
All this raises what should be an obvious question: What does a baseball fan’s sexuality have to do with attending a ballgame to root for one’s favorite team?
The correct answer: Nothing.
Yet that didn’t stop the MLB front office from posting on X on June 1: “From the bleachers to the ballfield and everywhere in between … baseball is for everyone. #Pride.”
That is a red — or, in this case, rainbow — herring, of course, because no one we know of has ever said that baseball was not “for everyone,” including gays.
Still, why does the LGBTQ lobby think it deserves this special recognition? Why can they not leave the identity politics at home for nine innings?
Do MLB and executives of the 29 teams not care about the concerns of parents who bring their children to the ballpark, often unaware until they arrive that they could be subjected to some less-than-child-friendly sights in the stadium concourses and grandstands?
What about MLB players who would rather not feel pressured to wear the Pride paraphernalia on the field in support of something they do not support? Some ballplayers do refuse, but it takes intestinal fortitude to do so, knowing the intolerant left will condemn them for standing up for their beliefs.
On June 5 in Los Angeles, for example, Dodgers relief pitcher Blake Treinen, a devout Christian, pitched in the ninth inning wearing the standard Dodgers “L.A.” cap, rather than the rainbow Pride version his teammates were sporting.
Major League Baseball and its 30 teams would be better served by designating June as Title IX Month, following the Trump administration’s lead in discontinuing its predecessor’s Pride Month observances.
Celebrating the 1972 federal law that ensured equal athletic opportunities for girls and women is certainly more relevant in the context of baseball and the other three pro sports leagues — the NFL, NBA, and NHL — which also roll out the red carpet for the LGBTQ lobby in June.
The Rangers could go one step further and set an example for other pro sports teams by also hosting a night in June to mark Nuclear Family Month, which has recently been embraced by Alabama, Indiana and Tennessee, with other red states likely to follow.
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