Yankees kneel before, but not during national anthem; Aaron Boone makes Black Lives Matter statement
Aaron Boone did his pregame press conference wearing a Black Lives Matter T-shirt on Thursday and several players were expected to wear them for batting practice, which was before most reporters could get into the building, the first sign of the Yankees’ intent to make a social justice statement before they played the first game of the 2020, coronavirus-shortened MLB season.
“I just feel like, I want to be part of it and we’ve had conversations as an organization, we’ve had conversations as a team,” The Yankees manager said. “We’ve had smaller group conversations, conversations with one another. And we’ve kind of decided as a team. Not that necessarily everyone will be wearing these for batting practice I know a lot of guys are. I felt like I wanted to wear it. And tonight, we’ll as a team have our own demonstration.”
Before the national anthem on Thursday night, every player and coach on the field for the Yankees and Nationals took a knee while all holding a single length of black rope. After a short moment of silence, they all stood up while “The Star-Spangled Banner” was performed.
During the baseball hiatus, the move for racial equality and justice has surged across the country and MLB players were part of that. Boone used his instagram to show how personal it was to his family, which includes two sons he and his wife adopted from Haiti.
Giancarlo Stanton, Aaron Hicks, Aaron Judge, James Paxton and Adam Ottavino went on social media to voice their support for Black Lives Matter.
MLB responded with the plan to allow players have the option of having a patch with “Black Lives Matter” or “United For Change” on a jersey sleeve on opening day.
Tuesday, Judge said that it was important for the Yankees to make their decision as a group on how to move forward.
“Some people express it online, some people express it with words, some people kneel or do what they need to do,” Judge explained. “But I think whatever message that we try to give out here is we want to try to express unity and that we’re all in this together. I think that’s the biggest message that we’re going to try to get across from here is just, we’re all in this together.Try to have those uncomfortable conversations that we need to have and bring up those uncomfortable talking points, but no matter what happens, we’re in this together.”
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