Josh Hawley Just Put MLB on Notice Over Biblical Protest and the League Is About Out of Time

MLB spent years letting players stencil BLM slogans on their pitching mounds.

Now they warned three Christian pitchers for writing a Bible verse on their caps.

Josh Hawley just told Commissioner Rob Manfred he has a problem that won't go away quietly.

MLB Warned Christians While BLM Got a Free Pass

Three San Francisco Giants pitchers – Landen Roupp, JT Brubaker, and Ryan Walker – did something radical on Pride Night last Friday.

They wore the team's mandatory rainbow-themed caps and wrote Genesis 9:12-16 on them.

That's the passage where God sets a rainbow in the clouds as the sign of his covenant with all living creatures – a Bible verse, not a protest sign.

By Monday, MLB's chief communications officer Pat Courtney had issued an official warning: "The writing on the cap violates our rules, and consistent with normal practice, we have warned the players about future violations."

The league later tried to walk it back, insisting the warning "had absolutely nothing to do with the content of the message."

Sure it didn't.

The Double Standard MLB Can't Explain Away

In 2020, MLB turned its uniforms and fields into a billboard for the Black Lives Matter movement.

Jersey patches read "Black Lives Matter" and "United for Change."

The league had "BLM" stenciled onto pitching mounds and waived its own equipment rules so players could put progressive political slogans on their cleats.

Now three pitchers write a Genesis reference on a hat and MLB sends an official warning.

The hypocrisy gets worse.

Last season, Dodgers legend Clayton Kershaw wrote the exact same Bible verse – Genesis 9:12-16 – on his Pride Night cap.

Not a word from Pat Courtney.

The only difference between Kershaw last year and Roupp this year is that someone at the league office decided Christians needed to be put in their place.

Hawley Just Put the Antitrust Exemption on the Table

Senator Josh Hawley sent a letter to Commissioner Rob Manfred on Tuesday demanding answers by June 19 – and the letter isn't a polite inquiry.

Hawley made sure MLB understood exactly what's at stake.

"Alone among America's professional sports leagues, baseball enjoys a sweeping, judicially manufactured exemption from the federal antitrust laws," Hawley wrote.

That exemption – created by the Supreme Court in 1922 in Federal Baseball Club v. National League – gives MLB protections no other major sports league enjoys.

No NFL team, no NBA franchise, no NHL club gets that deal.

Only baseball.

Hawley's letter also points to a separate undercover investigation that caught a Washington Nationals executive admitting a Catholic player was deliberately left out of team promotional materials because of his faith – an executive who has since been fired.

MLB's treatment of the Giants pitchers, Hawley argues, isn't an isolated incident.

It's a pattern.

"The freedom to live out one's faith does not end at the ballpark gate," Hawley wrote.

This isn't the first time Hawley has gone after the exemption.

In 2021, he joined Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, Marco Rubio, and Marsha Blackburn in introducing legislation to strip it after MLB moved the All-Star Game out of Georgia to protest election integrity laws.

In 2023, the same coalition came back with another bill after MLB celebrated the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence – a drag queen group known for mocking Catholic religious imagery – at Dodger Stadium's Pride Night.

MLB blinked both times.

They won't find it so easy to blink when a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing puts Manfred under oath and forces him to explain why BLM slogans on the pitching mound were free expression but Genesis on a hat is a uniform violation.

Landen Roupp Told Them to Read the Bible and That Is the Problem

MLB isn't enforcing a uniform policy.

They're enforcing an ideology.

When the message is Christian, the rulebook appears out of nowhere.

Landen Roupp said it perfectly after the game.

"It's just about God's covenant and a promise that he makes to us – his faithfulness and his mercy," Roupp told reporters. "That's just something I believe in, and I stand firm in that."

When a reporter pressed him on how he'd answer someone in the LGBTQ community who was hurt by a Bible verse, Roupp told them to read the Bible.

That's not hate.

That's a man who knows what he believes and won't apologize for it.

And that's exactly what MLB can't stand – a Christian player who won't fold.

Commissioner Manfred has until end of day to respond.

If MLB thinks Hawley is bluffing, they haven't been paying attention to what Republicans have been willing to do since 2021.

That antitrust exemption has been sitting there for over a hundred years.

It only takes one good bill and a Senate majority to end it.

Sources:

• Josh Hawley, "Hawley Demands Answers from MLB for Penalizing Christian Players," hawley.senate.gov, June 16, 2026.
• Tyler O'Neil, "Is MLB Treating Christians Differently? Hawley Demands Answers," Daily Signal, June 16, 2026.
• OutKick Staff, "Major League Baseball Warns San Francisco Giants Players for Writing Bible Verses on Pride Night Hats," OutKick, June 15, 2026.
• Washington Times Staff, "MLB 'Must Answer' for Warning After Giants Pitchers' Pride Night Message," Washington Times, June 17, 2026.
• Sister Toldjah, "Josh Hawley on Warpath After Baseball Players Targeted, and MLB Won't Like What May Be Coming Next," RedState, June 16, 2026.
• Rusty Weiss, "MLB Continues Shameful Anti-Christian Crusade – Threatens Players Over Bible Verses on Pride Night Caps," RedState, June 16, 2026.