Major League Baseball’s season opener looked different than usual for more than just a lack of a live audience.
In a moment of solidarity for racial injustice in the country, players and coaches could be seen during Thursday night’s game kneeling during the national anthem, a demonstration started by National Football League players four years ago. At the Giants vs. Dodgers game in Los Angeles, every player could be seen taking a knee during the anthem and holding a black cloth, except one.
“I’m a Christian,” Sam Coonrod, San Francisco Giants relief pitcher, told multiple media outlets after the game. “So, I just believe that I can’t kneel before anything besides God.”
Coonrod, 27, said he disagreed with elements of the Black Lives Matter movement, accusing it of being far-left.
“I just can’t get on board with a couple of things that I have read about Black Lives Matter,” he said. “How they lean toward Marxism, and they’ve said some negative things about the nuclear family. I just can’t get on board with that.”
The player said he didn’t have time to discuss his choice with his teammates or coaches before the game because he didn’t know about the decision to kneel until late that day. He added that he meant “no ill will” toward anyone by his decision and that he felt that he would have been a hypocrite if he knelt.
Coonrod said he spoke with his manager, Gabe Kapler, who knelt during the anthem along with players and coaches, and that he respected his personal opinions.
“He’s not going to get mad if I disagree with him,” Coonrod said. “I think that’s part of the problem nowadays. People get mad whenever someone disagrees. I’m not mad at someone that decided to kneel. I think it’s not too much to ask that I just get the same respect, you know?”
Kapler echoed those sentiments, saying it was up to players to decide for themselves what they wanted to do.
“The one thing that we said is we were going to let people express themselves,” he said. “We were going to give them the choice on whether they were going to stand, kneel, or do something else. That was a personal decision for Sam.”
The Giants lost 8-1 to the Dodgers.
