Good morning, Athletics Nation!
Only once has a Major League Baseball player knelt for the national anthem before a regular season game, and that was Oakland A’s catcher Bruce Maxwell back in 2017. On Monday, someone else finally joined him, at least in the preseason.
Before the A’s exhibition game against the San Francisco Giants at the Coliseum, on the same field where Maxwell had done so in ‘17, several members of the Giants took a knee during the pregame performance of the “Star-Spangled Banner.” They included players Jaylin Davis, Austin Slater, and Mike Yastrzemski; coaches Antoan Richardson and Justin Viele; and manager Gabe Kapler, plus “multiple people in the bullpen,” reports John Shea of the S.