Sunk costs

It's gonna be a while before you get to the meaning of that title, so bear with me

The 2026 Giants are a bad team. We all know it, we’ve all seen it, we’ve all (at least mostly) accepted it.

And, you know, it happens. Teams have up periods and down periods, and if you’re not a Yankees or Dodgers fan, you have to live with the downs. If they last too long, you start to agitate and stop watching games, stop buying merchandise, stop giving the team your time or attention or money, and eventually they change something and hope that the team improves and you come back. There are fluctuations within these cycles, and sometimes they’re pleasantly short and sometimes they’re frustratingly long, but that’s about the shape of it.

But fans give their teams another chance. Fans want to give their teams another chance. When you’re a fan, there’s some pride in knowing that those guys out on the field are representing you. That’s your city, that’s your organization, that’s something you’ve probably grown up with and spent countless hours of your life following and discussing and loving. That team is part of you. Maybe it’s a small part, like the part that has opinions on each individual Fast and Furious movie. Maybe it’s a bigger part, like the part that believes in a functional system of representational government and finds it unthinkable that any American could fundamentally not want that. Regardless, they’re in there somewhere.

So to see a team decide, en masse, that not only is it not their job to represent their fan community, but it is not even their job to allow their fan community to feel respected? That’s unforgivable.

Landon Roupp, JT Brubaker, Sam Hentges, and Ryan Walker want the LGBTQ community to know that they don’t support them. On Friday night — Pride Night at Oracle Park — Roupp, Brubaker, and Walker each wrote Bible verses on their rainbow Pride hats, while Hentges fully refused to wear the hat at all.

We can assume, based on his retweet of Roupp’s postgame comments before his own start on Saturday, that Trevor McDonald agrees with them, and would have had a similar Bible verse on his hat if he’d played on Friday night.

Here are Roupp’s postgame comments, from NBC Sports Bay Area:

“It’s just about God’s covenant and a promise that he makes to us that, you know, his faithfulness and his mercy,” Roupp told reporters. “That’s just kind of something I believe in, and I stand firm in that, and I’m thankful we live in a country where, you know, we have the freedom to believe what we want ... and express what we want.”

“Kind of what the verse says, you know, the rainbow is a symbol of God’s covenant to us, and us as believers to stand firm in that. ... There’s no hate at all. It’s just what I stand for and what I stand in. I believe in God, and that’s me.

Roupp then was asked how he’d respond if someone from LGBTQ+ community took exception to his inscription of the Bible verse on Pride Night.

“First of all, as a believer, I would push them to read the Bible,” Roupp stated. “I think God has blessed me in so many ways, and I don’t think I would be here right now if it wasn’t for him. So, like I said, there’s no hate in it at all, you know, like I said, we live in a country where you’re welcome to believe what you want. There’s a freedom of speech and stuff like that, so that’s really all I have to say about that. I’m just thankful that God has put me in this situation and that I can go out and share his kingdom.”

It’s interesting that Landon Roupp was not concerned with God’s nondiluvial covenant before Friday, isn’t it? Not once earlier in the season did he respond to a question in his postgame press conference to say, “Yeah, that 2-2 pitch got away from me, and also I want to talk about how the rainbow was a symbol to Noah that God would never flood the Earth again.”

The Biblical flood is not relevant to baseball, or to Pride Night. The only reason to bring it up is to diminish Pride Night. Roupp saw that a group of people got to have something — in this case, literally a hat — and he thought, No, my group should have this. That’s literally it. It was purely a pathetic, lizard-brain reaction. He saw a group that his group has deemed immoral, and decided that he should get to take what they had.

Envy is one of the seven deadly sins, by the way.

Here’s what Hentges had to say for himself:

“I think I grew up, it was more a religious belief. I grew up as a Christian, I’ve grown in my faith. There wasn’t any hatred behind it,” Hentges said. “It’s just something that I feel like I was forced to support when I don’t morally support it. There wasn’t hatred behind it. That’s kind of something that’s misinterpreted. I don’t hate the LGBTQ community. It’s something I believed and talked with teammates and family and they supported it.

“There was no intentional hate. We have these hats and we’re supposed to wear them if we support it. If we don’t, then you don’t have to wear them. We have that choice. Just like they have their choices, too. And understand that as humans we all have choices that we can choose to do and do whatever we want. But it’s not something I support. At the end of the day, I want the message heard that there’s no hatred.”

Yes, Sam, we hear you, and you’re lying.

What does it mean to support the LGBTQ community? What does it mean to not support them? What changes because you don’t support them? The most generous possible reading of that is that Sam Hentges thinks that he should personally get to decide how people live their lives. They do not get to live in the way that makes them happy if Sam Hentges thinks they shouldn’t. They don’t get autonomy or independence or the full range of being human because some guy they’ll never meet thinks it’s icky. As long as they have those things, and free rein to celebrate the people they love, if their love offends Sam Hentges, he thinks that they should never experience joy, community, or validation. That is the most generous possible reading of that statement.

The least generous possible reading of that statement is that Sam Hentges thinks they should all die. Not in a hateful way. Just as something they deserve, like a soldier invading a foreign country.

Here is the statement the Giants put out about the incident:

“The San Francisco Giants are proud to support Pride Night and the LGBTQ+ community. Baseball should be a place where everyone feels welcome, respected, and valued,” the team wrote. “We also respect that individuals may make personal choices about participating in team activations.

“We understand the choice by individual players has caused pain and anger to many in the LGBTQ+ community and we are sorry for that. Those choices do not change our organization’s commitment to inclusion, belonging, and creating a welcoming environment for all. We remain grateful to our fans, partners, employees, players and coaches who help make Pride Night a meaningful celebration.”

Those choices do actually change your organization’s commitment to inclusion, belonging, and creating a welcoming environment for all. It only takes one asshole to ruin a party, and you’ve got five. When you show up somewhere and get the impression you’re not wanted, it’s not because literally everyone there told you that. It’s because a few people told you that, and no one spoke up to tell them they were wrong. There’s a reason the complete phrase is “One bad apple spoils the barrel.”

That’s what happened on Friday. A few people told a whole community that they weren’t welcome, and no one from the team said, “Those guys are wrong. We want you here.” A weak statement the next day with no action behind it, no commitments, no change, and no consequences is meaningless. The best anyone got from any player was Logan Webb implying that he didn’t agree with them, and then saying that they could do what they wanted.

I probably don’t have to tell you this, but that’s not very good.

Finally, here’s what Tony Vitello said about the hats, and whether they were discussed before the game:

"Not really, just kind of a general knowledge of the individuals that have the freedom to do what they think is best."

Why is Tony Vitello managing this team? What exactly does he do? Does he just like being buddies with a bunch of assholes?

Because in this situation, it was his job to say no. When a group of players comes to the manager and says, “Hello manager, on Pride Night we would like to alienate a lot of Giants fans,” the correct answer is, “That’s unacceptable and you’re not going to do it.” Full stop. That’s it. “But we feel it’s important to-” “No. End of discussion.”

When the Giants ask their players to wear a Pride hat, what they are essentially asking is the same thing they ask for every game: Act like you give a shit about the fans. Act like the people in the stands and watching at home matter to you, and that you’re honored to represent them in this game, and that you understand how important they are to you being able to have this job. The Pride hat makes it more explicit that tonight, for this one game, the team specifically wants to acknowledge their LGBTQ fans, but they are always there. They are always part of this fanbase, and they are always part of whatever success you have on the field.

All of that is before you get to their status as a both historically and currently disenfranchised group. That is before you get to all of the rights the federal government is trying to take away from them — obviously, transgender people are getting the worst of it right now, but no one in the community is safe. That is before you understand why historically the LGBTQ community congregated in San Francisco, that it was as safe of a place as they could find, and so they built their lives there and helped shape the city into the one the Giants play in today.

Even without getting into any of that, at the most basic level, this is a community of people who love this baseball team and support this baseball team, and recognizing their importance, this baseball team said, great, for this one night we will celebrate you and let you know that we’re glad you’re here.

Then Landon Roupp, JT Brubaker, Sam Hentges, and Ryan Walker said no. Landon Roupp, JT Brubaker, Sam Hentges, and Ryan Walker said you don’t get to have that. In the same way that the people who have been oppressing you for your entire lives do not agree with who you are on a basic, cellular level, neither do we. In the same way that people in power want you to feel lesser, want you to feel like second-class citizens, want you to feel like your concerns and your lives don’t matter, so do we.

And Trevor McDonald was with them in spirit. Don’t want to forget Trevor!

But Tony Vitello didn’t bring any of that up. Vitello just okayed whatever the players wanted to do. Maybe he didn’t feel like he had the right to make them shut up, as a free speech thing. Maybe he agreed with them. He probably agreed with them, to be honest. I was going to come up with a third possibility here, but no, I don’t think that’s necessary. I think he agreed with them.

It’s hard to imagine that higher-ups in the organization didn’t hear about this too. There are lots of players, coaches, and staff in that clubhouse, and someone must have heard something. Someone would have relayed it up the chain. Or maybe Vitello himself told Buster Posey that hey, some players are going to write Bible verses on their hats for Pride Night. It would kinda be dereliction of duty for him not to, considering the pride (pun!) the organization takes in putting on those events.

This is something the Giants could have stopped. MLB issued a warning yesterday because of the violations of the uniform code, which is as much as they do for first offenses. But those players did not have to violate the uniform code. The team could have made it clear that they were going to all wear the correct uniform for the night, unaltered. Yes, they would have been unhappy. But because the Giants didn’t do that, now they have thousands of fans who are unhappy, which seems like a bad deal for them.

Because what every one of those players made clear is that they think this is all about them. This is not about the city they play for, the fans who supports them, or the organization who brings it all together. Landon Roupp did not take that mound to represent San Francisco or the Giants. He took that mound to represent Landon Roupp. He could not think, “I will wear this hat unaltered for one day to represent Giants fans.” Instead it was, “I cannot wear this hat because it does not represent me.”

That is selfishness. That is pure, base vanity. To think that the entire game is about you is self-centered. To think that you are above representing the people who make the team possible is egotistical. And it’s not like we saw this kind of behavior with the military-focused Memorial Day hats, even though there are plenty of passages in the Bible like “Thou shalt not kill” and “Blessed are the peacemakers” and “All who draw the sword will die by the sword” to choose from.

Not that I personally am offended by this, but it is a fun little note that the “read the Bible” guy is endorsing the worst possible reading of the Bible. America!

No, those hats, and the people they represent, aren’t culturally acceptable targets in the right-wing fundamentalist world that produced these guys. Clayton Kershaw made it trendy to deface your Pride hat with that Bible verse, so that’s what Roupp, Brubaker, and Walker did. Blake Treinen — Blake Treinen — refused to wear a Pride hat at all, so that’s what Sam Hentges did. There isn’t one original thought in their heads about this. They’re just doing what they’re told, doing what other people do. They don’t think about it. They don’t actually consider why they should or shouldn’t act. They know what they want to do, and then they come up with a justification to do it, and then they do it.

And it’s funny that Hentges said he felt “forced to support it,” because he actually couldn’t have been less forced to support it. Sam Hentges, you were a free agent. You came to San Francisco willingly. You knew perfectly well what this city was, what kind of people live there, and what kind of causes you would be obligated to support, and you signed anyway. This is the deal you made with your eyes open.

If you didn’t want to be obligated to support LGBTQ people, Sam Hentges, you didn’t have to sign with the Giants. You could have taken a worse deal from some other team, if you would have found that more morally palatable. But the Giants offered you the most from a playing time perspective, or a financial perspective, and that won out, and you think you can just take the money without living up to your obligation to the community you chose to join. That is bullshit. Grow up.

Ryan Walker and JT Brubaker didn’t make any statements about this that I could find, but rest assured that they suck too.

In some ways, it shouldn’t be a surprise that this is what the Giants are allowing themselves to become. The man who owns the biggest piece of the team, Charles Johnson, is himself steeped in the same kind of right-wing propaganda that produced this protest. Hell, every election season, he gives tons of money to the exact people who are deepening those divisions. Remember when he promised he’d demand his money back from all those election deniers he’d donated to, and only give to better candidates? And then in reality he never even considered doing any of that? Maybe we should have known then that this is where we were headed.

Hell, even the name Oracle Park is part of this story. Oracle made Larry Ellison rich beyond imagining, which made his son rich beyond imagining, which meant that David Ellison could buy Paramount and turn CBS News into right-wing dogshit. The company responsible for that now has its name proudly displayed at 3rd and King.

It’s a sad conclusion to come to, but if you look past what the team says, look past the empty PR statements, and look at what they do, this is just who they are. They tolerated an open anti-Pride rebellion from a huge percentage of their roster. They fired Renel for being too woke. They’re more committed to their real estate empire than to their baseball team. Whatever this franchise used to be, whatever they had to be proud of, it’s gone now. All we have are scraps.

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And that brings me to the second, shorter part of today’s newsletter: This will be the last one.

We all know that this has been an awful season for the Giants. The truth is, it has been difficult to find anything interesting to say about this team for a while. They’re not very good. They’re not run very well. From time to time, something interesting will happen, but otherwise it’s just a variation on one of those two themes.

And that’s part of baseball. That’s part of life. The down times make the good times better, he said, trying not to curse the fates that kept him from being a Harlem Globetrotters fan. But if I’m going to put time and effort into this team, then I need to have a reason for that. And what has become unquestionably apparent is that I don’t.

The only reason I would have to support this team is inertia. They do not deserve it on the field. They do not deserve it off the field. In some third, Schroedinger-esque liminal space between on and off the field, they also don’t deserve it. I would keep going because of the sunk cost fallacy, because I’ve already put so much into them, already have a closet filled with Giants jersey after Giants jersey. I would keep going because I remember Will Clark and Bill Mueller and Jason Schmidt and Matt Cain and that one really good season from Dereck Rodriguez and Thairo Estrada. I would keep going because it’s what I’ve always done.

That’s not good enough. The Giants aren’t good enough, in every sense of the term. Maybe if they were playing well, I would make the morally incorrect choice to keep writing about them. I hope not, but you never want to assume you’re the kind of person who always does the right thing, because then you can mentally turn everything you do into The Right Thing. Certainly if the Giants weren’t so devoted to allowing unchecked bigotry, I would keep writing about them.

Neither of those is the case. It has become abundantly clear that neither of those will be the case anytime soon. This team is an abyss, and I don’t have any desire to throw more of my time into it.

So this is a goodbye. There will still be Giants content out there online for those of you who feel it’s worth your time. If anyone would like to pick up the owners project that I’ve been doing for six years, feel free (Inside info: I started researching Dan Scheinman in February but he was such a garden-variety tech chud that I lost the will to keep going with him. He got mad at UC Berkeley’s law school for hiring Chesa Boudin! Just a staggering case of San Francisco Tech Brain). For now, though, I’m done.

Thank you to everyone who read, liked, and commented. Thanks to everyone who pledged money in support. I never turned that feature on, mostly because I didn’t want Substack to make a cent off my work, but I really do appreciate that you thought my writing here was worth both your time and your financial support. And finally, thanks to Kristin, my wife, who’s had to tolerate years of me crabbily saying “I have to write!” and then sitting in front of a blank screen for hours until something interesting comes to mind.

Thank you all so much for your time. I’ll leave you with this, unquestionably the greatest moment in American history: