I have mentioned on the show that I am a San Francisco Giants fan–and have been since my early teens. It might sound strange for someone who has lived in Wisconsin for the vast majority of my life, but Will Clark was “my guy” back then–and I’ve stuck with them ever since. And I have been rewarded with three World Series championships in a five year period in the early 2010’s.
Normally, I would never root for one of my favorite teams to lose games. I’m not a believer in “tanking” to get better draft picks–or that players should “quit on a coach” to get him fired. But this year, I am okay with the Giants going in the tank.
I had high expectations for the Giants this season. They won 107-games last year, made the playoffs, and were bringing most of the same guys back for this year. And they were doing fairly well early on, sitting at 24-19 on May 27th–good enough for one of the three National League Wild Card spots.
But on May 28th, Giants Manager Gabe Kapler announced in his blog (how very millennial of him) that he was no longer going to join his team on the field or in the dugout for the National Anthem before games. Kapler said his anti-Anthem stance was due to the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas and lawmakers’ refusal to pass new gun control laws.
Now, I am all for Americans protesting in whatever way the choose. But I also strongly believe that those that choose to protest should live with the negative consequences of those actions. And for the Giants since Kapler started that protest, things have not gone well. The G-Men are 26-35 since May 27th (I’m not counting the Memorial Day win because Kapler actually came out for the anthem on that day to “honor those who died”)–have fallen 20 and a half games out of first in the National League West–and five and a half games out of the third wild card spot.
Is there a direct correlation between Gabe Kapler deciding not to stand with his team for the Anthem and their poor performance on the field since he started doing that? Probably not. Ten of the guys on the active roster aren’t from the US and would probably prefer not to have to be out there for the US Anthem themselves. But the timing certainly is interesting. And if the Giants continue their slide and miss the playoffs, then I am fine with that. Just like I’d be fine if they showed Gabe Kapler the door.
That’s also why I am ambivalent toward the situation faced by Brittney Griner in Russia this summer. Griner, an outspoken critic of the US in regards to LGBTQ issues and WNBA players not making as much as NBA players, decided to go to a country with a real problem with LGBTQ rights for a money grab and got busted for bringing along her “prescription” marijuana. While I think this is certainly a trumped up charge to embarrass the US, I also think this is a great lesson that Ms Griner is learning about what real “injustice” is like. And the idea that we are going to trade a notorious Russian illegal weapons trafficker and a convicted murderer to obtain her release doesn’t seem that fair to me.
Yesterday, a bunch of the golfers playing on the Saudi-funded LIV Tour sued the PGA Tour asking the court to force the Tour to allow LIV guys that are eligible based on points to play in the FedEx Cup Playoffs starting in a couple of weeks. I have no doubt that a carefully-selected judge will issue an injunction lifting the Tour’s suspension of those players and order they be included in the field for as long as they have enough points to be eligible. And when that happens I will root for Dustin Johnson, Phil Mickelson, Brooks Koepka, and Bryson DeChambeau to miss the cut in all of their “I’m only here because the court said I could be here” tournaments. It’s interesting that guys who have guaranteed money from the Saudis–and don’t have to worry about missing cuts in their LIV tournaments–feel it necessary to come back to the PGA Tour to try and cash in on another 10-million dollar prize.
So I have will plenty of losers to root for the rest of this year. And I didn’t even get to Notre Dame Football or the University of Minnesota–both of whom I detest for reasons that have nothing to do with protests.
