MLB quietly forbids most teams from wearing rainbow jerseys on Pride Night

Major League Baseball (MLB), the professional league representing 30 North American teams, has quietly announced a policy that will indirectly bar teams from wearing rainbow-colored jerseys during their annual Pride night events.

“MLB informed teams during the offseason that they could only change their gameday uniforms for league-wide observances like Jackie Robinson Day,” reporter Adam Berry wrote on MLB.com, adding, “Pride Night is considered a local event.”

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Only two teams, the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Francisco Giants, were granted exemptions based on a pre-existing agreement, Berry noted.

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Cyd Zeigler, co-founder of the LGBTQ+ sports website Outsports, noted that the policy forbids the 28 other teams from wearing uniforms modified for any local events, not just Pride nights. That means that the members of the Tampa Bay Rays, some of which wore rainbows on their official team uniforms during their team’s 2022 Pride night, won’t be allowed to anymore.

“If you’re p**sed off at MLB about this new policy, know that these decisions aren’t made in a vacuum,” Ziegler wrote. “You can bet the Major League Baseball Players Association — the players’ union — had something to say about their players being forced to wear rainbows.”

Right-wingers may point to this as proof that their boycotts and pressure campaigns have successfully influenced MLB to see support for LGBTQ+ Pride as “toxic.” Recent right-wing campaigns have influenced Bud Light and Target to back off of their own LGBTQ+-inclusive marketing efforts.

However, MLB has only prohibited teams from altering their official uniforms during games. Most of the teams will continue to host Pride nights each year, and team members can still show their support for the LGBTQ+ community by wearing non-uniform accessories (such as rainbow armbands) before or during the games.

Pressuring team members to wear rainbows has at times led to unflattering headlines when some members refuse. For example, during the Tampa Bay Rays’ 2022 Pride Night event, at least five players removed the rainbow logos from their uniforms and refused to wear special caps featuring a rainbow-colored version of the team’s logo.

By removing any pressure for all players to wear rainbows, the MLB’s new policy may re-focus the attention of Pride Nights on the team’s community efforts and fans, rather than on the few players who may feel uncomfortable wearing that support on their sleeves.