‘Disappointed and upset': S.F. Mayor Daniel Lurie weighs in on Giants Pride Night fiasco

Mayor Daniel Lurie said Thursday he was "incredibly disappointed and upset" that several San Francisco Giants pitchers protested the team's annual LGBTQ celebration last week, setting off a controversy that has embroiled his hometown baseball team.

Three pitchers - Landen Roupp, JT Brubaker and Ryan Walker - wrote Bible verses on their team-issued Pride Night hats featuring rainbow Giants logos for the June 12 game against the Chicago Cubs. A fourth pitcher, Sam Hentges, opted not to wear the hat at all when he played in the game, which the Giants lost 5-1.

"This is why we need Pride. We need to lean in and we need to keep educating people, even here in San Francisco," Lurie told the Chronicle, echoing remarks he previously made to the Bay Area Reporter. "It was a rough night, but one that we need to learn from."

The pitchers' Pride protest has snowballed into a public relations fiasco for the Giants, compounding the team's woes as it struggles to improve one of the worst records in the National League this season.

Devoted fans, members of the LGBTQ community and local political leaders have expressed shock and outrage that the Giants would allow such a prominent demonstration against Pride Night. The protest ran counter to both the team's long-running reputation as an ally and San Francisco's international status as a beacon for LGBTQ people.

The uproar also spread to national conservatives - but for a different reason.

After Major League Baseball issued warnings to Roupp, Brubaker and Walker about league policies against altering their uniforms, Vice President JD Vance wrote on social media that "Trump won, we don't have to do this anymore." Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., wrote a letter to the MLB commissioner lambasting what he called a "pattern of discrimination" against Christian baseball players.

Lurie, an avid Giants fan whose outgoing chief of staff is a former executive at the team, dismissed the conservative critiques.

"A few people made it about themselves and not our community. I'm going to focus on what we can do better here in San Francisco," he told the Chronicle. "We've long been attacked for how we stand up for our immigrant community, for our LGBTQ+ community, for being San Francisco, and I'll let them continue to do that. We're going to stand up for our community here in San Francisco."

Lurie's administration had a visible presence at the Pride game: One of his aides threw the ceremonial first pitch. The mayor said he had not spoken directly to team leaders about the hat controversy yet.

"I do believe and imagine I will be talking to them in the coming days and seeing what is going on with them," he said. "I remain confident that they will continue to support the LGBTQ+ community loudly and proudly."

Lurie joins a growing list of local officials who have commented on the Giants debacle this week.

Both candidates vying for Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi's seat in Congress, state Sen. Scott Wiener and Supervisor Connie Chan, previously weighed in on the matter. Wiener, who is gay, has issued several remarks about it on social media, including a statement in which he called on the Giants to "publicly commit to enforcing rules around uniform defacement" and said the team "should not effectively create a homophobia exemption to those rules."

Chan, meanwhile, said on Instagram that San Francisco "stands together in love and support for our LGBTQ+ community" and invited the Giants to "join us in this fight," adding that "there is NO space for hate."

Supervisor Matt Dorsey, a gay Christian who attended the Giants' opening ceremony at the Pride Night game, said in a thread on X that the controversy was "disappointing in several respects." He said protesting the Pride hats with Bible verses was "problematically undisciplined," explaining that well-paid athletes shouldn't see their team uniforms as "a canvas for individual self-expression" and "championship-caliber teams never tolerate distractions like this."

While Dorsey said he had "no problem" with athletes drawing inspiration from Bible verses, he was "bothered to see Biblical cherry-picking used to score political points, on a single occasion, and it's hard to argue this was anything other than that."

"Third, as a gay man, I'm disappointed that a universally recognized symbol of LGBTQ+ visibility and inclusion is still seen by some as controversial in 2026," Dorsey wrote. "Major cities with major-league sports teams are inherently diverse, and if you're uncomfortable celebrating the wide array of heritage and pride nights for communities that make up the city on your uniform, maybe the major leagues aren't for you."

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This story was originally published June 18, 2026 at 7:06 PM.