ESPN’s commentator Sarah Spain grabbed everyone’s attention when she called the players of the Tampa Bay Rays baseball team “bigots” for not wearing the Pride Month rainbow patches on their uniforms. The decision by the players may have been taken depending on their faith. But Spain’s comment on the same was surely hard to miss.
Here’s why ESPN commentator Sarah Spain called Tampa Bay baseball players “bigots.”.
Tampa Bay baseball players refuse to wear Pride Month rainbow patches on their uniforms
The incident is said to have occurred in 2022, when during the Pride Month of the year, some of the Tampa Bay Rays baseball players refused to wear the Pride Month rainbow patches on their uniforms. LGBTQ has since long been a hot topic of discussion among its supporters and non-supporters.
The same became a reason for one of the ESPN commentators to call the Tampa Bay Rays players “bigots” for not wearing the rainbow patches. Well, it was Sarah Spain who reportedly said so about the players who refused to wear the patches on the occasion of the Pride Month.
During the “Around the Horn” segment, host Tony Reali was reading a portion of a statement by one of the Tampa Bay Rays players who refused to wear the rainbow patches. Reali read why Jason Adam refused to wear the patch, giving it the reason of a “faith-based decision.”
Jason was one of the Tampa Bay Rays players who didn’t wear the Pride Month rainbow patched on his uniform, while others were Jalen Beeks, Brooks Raley, Jeffrey Springs, and Ryan Thompson.
Why did Sarah Spain call the Tampa Bay Rays players “bigots”?
Tony Reali had finished reading the reason why Jason refused to wear the Pride Month patch to have the reaction of Spain. Sarah Spain was having her reactions over the players of the Tampa Bay Rays as she said, “Pride is about inclusion, so you don’t love them, and you don’t welcome them if you’re not willing to wear the patch. And calling it a ‘lifestyle’ reveals to me that you’ve done not even a modicum of research or understanding on this topic.”
She added, “It’s what tends to happen when a privileged class isn’t affected by things. This is not just about baseball. That religious exemption BS, which is used in sports and otherwise also allows for people to be denied health care, jobs, apartments, children, prescriptions, all sorts of rights.”
Sarah calling them ‘bigots’ further added, “And so we have to stop tiptoeing around it because we’re trying to protect people who are trying to be bigoted from asking for them to be exempt from it, when the very people that they are bigoted against are suffering the consequences.”
The incident and Sarah’s take on the same certainly raised many eyebrows back when it happened. However, the topic of LGBTQ and Pride Month still continues to be a debatable topic on the internet to date, as some tend to support the community while others don’t.
