Cardinals remain standing for anthem, plan to make their stand to ‘create awareness’ for equality

Click here for updates on this story

    ST. LOUIS (St. Louis Post-Dispatch) — Wearing a black shirt that read “I CAN’T BREATHE” and appropriately distanced from his nearest teammates, starter Jack Flaherty joined what appeared to be the entire Cardinals roster for the national anthem before Wednesday’s exhibition game against the Royals.

No one on either team took a knee.

The Cardinals’ “unified” statement will be Friday.

When Flaherty makes the first opening day start of his career, he said there will be a Black Lives Matter phrase or logo stenciled on the mound at Busch Stadium. The Cardinals are one of several teams that have agreed to do that for opening weekend, Flaherty said. A team official called what the team has planned will be “an opportunity to create awareness.”

“It’s great to have the acknowledgement,” Flaherty said. “And that’s the place that you have to start at. You’ve got to start somewhere. There has been a lot of talk here in conversations we’ve had with, hey, what can we do going forward. We don’t really have that answer. Dexter (Fowler) has repeatedly said in the clubhouse (that) it’s going to be a generational thing. It’s not like we’re going to change things overnight. But it’s what can we do to try and start that process? And try to get things moving in the right direction.

“This is definitely a step toward that.”

Throughout baseball this week as exhibition games began en route to the 2020 regular season, several teams had players kneel during the national anthem. Joey Votto was one of several Reds who took a knee during the national anthem, and he had previously worn a “Black Lives Matter” t-shirt during batting practice. San Francisco Giants manager Gabe Kapler took a knee with several of his players during the national anthem before a game against the Athletics. Other players are expected to do the same in the coming days.

When NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick started taking a knee during the national anthem several years ago, baseball was conspicuously absent from taking note, let alone acknowledging the cause. One active ballplayer took a knee during the anthem in September 2017.

During the stoppage of sports forced by a global pandemic, players throughout professional sports have become vocal and present when it comes to drawing attention to racial injustice and movements such as Black Lives Matter. The death of George Floyd as a Minneapolis police officer kept a knee on his neck galvanized many athletes to a message and pursuit of racial justice. It also brought added attention to other deaths, like Breonna Taylor’s. She was killed in Louisville when police, executing a search warrant, fired on her in her apartment.

Flaherty was one of the most active players on social media – and he used that platform to draw people’s attention to his feelings and statements from the Players’ Alliance, a group formed by outfielder Cameron Maybin. During a Zoom conference with reporters on Wednesday afternoon, Flaherty answered a question about his plans for the coming start by first pointing out that Breonna Taylor’s shooting death in Louisville in March still deserves more attention.

The Cardinals have been supportive of Flaherty’s statements, and officials with the team have said in the past that they would support him if he and other teammates took a knee during the national anthem.

The Cardinals have had ongoing internal conversations about social justice as well. That included a visit this past week from the director of Maryville University’s office of diversity and inclusion.

Flaherty and Fowler have been “leaders” in the conversation.

They have also helped the Cardinals coordinate what they say will be a “unified” statement delivered Friday, before or during opening night against Pittsburgh.

“This group is very sincere about supporting the Black Lives Matter movement,” Shildt said. “We’ll do it in a unified manner that will really follow what the Players Alliance has suggested strongly. We support that. We believe in that as a group. We’ll participate in what that looks like on opening day on Friday.

“This group wants everything to work together, not only in a symbolic manner, in a unified manner,” Shildt continued. “What we do, we do together, we voice together, we unify together, and it’s not polarizing ever so we can eventually listen, and help elicit real solution and change, and ongoing change. The great news is that awareness has been created. Friday will be an opportunity to create awareness for something we’ll do together, and then beyond what does the solution look like that we can have a society that has equality across the board?”

Please note: This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.