CNN “America’s pastime is sending a loud message as it begins its condensed season: Black lives matter.
For decades, fans have claimed baseball often mirrors society and in 2020, that rings true — and loudly.
Opening Day should normally bring fans, awakening from winter hibernation, to ballpark grandstands adorned with American flag bunting. Covid-19 means those major league ballparks are largely silent, save for the crack of a bat — there are no fans in the stands.
But Major League Baseball, teams and players are also using this Opening Day to place Black Lives Matters center stage.
“BLM,” accompanied by the MLB’s logo, has been stamped onto the pitcher’s mound of the World Series-defending Washington Nationals –and the Los Angeles Dodgers — on Thursday night. That’s the most prominently displayed ballpark location during a television broadcast.
On Friday morning, the Tampa Bay Rays sent a tweet, saying, “Today is Opening Day, which means it’s a great day to arrest the killers of Breonna Taylor.”
The Boston Red Sox endorsed the message, retweeting it to their 2.1 million followers.
The left sleeve of some of the four teams player jerseys — the Nationals, New York Yankees, Los Angeles Dodgers and San Francisco Giants — have patches reading, “Black Lives Matter” and “United for Change,” alongside what the MLB says is an, “inverted MLB logo where the silhouetted batter is black.” “
