After knowing that He wants players to have a “voice” in a volatile election year, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell still had six months before the start of preseason games where he didn't have to worry about any potential on-field demos. But thanks to new San Francisco Giants captain Bob Melvin, all the current pressure is now on Major League Baseball.
Goodell probably sent Melvin a thank you card.
“Look, we're a new team here, we've got some good players here,” Melvin said about why he asked everyone in the team's dugout to stand on the field during the national anthem. “It's more about letting the other side know we're ready to play. I want the guys here to be ready to go. There's character to that.”
“It has nothing to do with what happened in the past or anything else, it's just something I accept.”
Deion Sanders He once said“If you look good, you feel good. If you feel good, you play well. If you play well, you get paid well.” But in Melvin's mind, on-field performance is defined by having his team stand in unison during a song that is unnecessarily played before sporting events in this country — fans usually do everything else but pay attention during it — as a way of letting their opponents know they're ” Ready to play.”
The film watching, mental preparation and batting practice clearly fail in comparison to Melvin's “pitching as a unit,” where standing in formation is the new way to win baseball games around the Bay.
“You want your team to be ready to play and I want the other team to notice that too,” he added. “It's that easy. They embrace it.”
Besides the lack of seriousness of Melvin's decision, it leaves us to believe one of two things about him: either he thinks we're all stupid, he has no self-awareness, or both.
Melvin works at A The league took nine days to address George Floyd in 2020You can't expect that four short years later decisions like these won't be in the news. Melvin also takes over for Gabe Kapler, the team The former captain who stopped taking to the field for the national anthem in 2022 After the mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas. He also knelt in 2020 – during the period in which Baseball's “performative mindfulness” was at an all-time high. And let's not forget the fact that this whole “anthem” started when Colin Kaepernick sat, then knelt, in the same city where Melvin now works.
There is nothing wrong with a new coach establishing his culture in the dressing room or club when he takes over, as that is part of what he was appointed to do. So, if Melvin wants his version of the San Francisco Giants to look different than the previous one, that will be proven in the standings.
But it's not about that, Melvin seems to have wanted to take a stand – literally and figuratively. It's not about whether his decision was right or wrong either. It's more about how loud his voice is and attracts attention unnecessarily. There is no subtlety in what Melvin is doing, and despite what he says, under the circumstances, he is the one who made it “political.”
If kneeling in sports is going to happen in 2024, it's likely to happen in football, especially the NFL. Which means we've had a quiet few months ahead of us. But thanks to Bob Melvin, the topic of discussion about another possible peaceful protest during a moment of silence became unnecessarily loud.
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