San Francisco Giants relief pitcher Sam Coonrod was the only player who refused to take a knee prior to the national anthem Thursday, nor did he bow to the Black Lives Matter agenda.
After the game, Coonrod explained why he refused to join his teammates in supplication to the leftist agenda, saying that he “can’t kneel before anything besides God.”
Coonrod also noted that he does not support many of the goals of the leftist Black Lives Matter political agenda.
“I’m a Christian, like I said, and I just can’t get on board with a couple of things that I have read about Black Lives Matter. How they lean towards Marxism and they’ve said some negative things about the nuclear family,” Coonrod said, according to NBC Sports Bay Area. “I just can’t get on board with that.”
The pitcher added that he didn’t make his decision against kneeling until very near the game and also did not discuss his intentions with his team.
Giants manager Gabe Kapler said he supported Coonrod’s choice.
“The one thing that we said is we were going to let people express themselves,” Kapler said after the game. “We were going to give them the choice on whether they were going to stand, kneel, or do something else. That was a personal decision for Sam.”
Captioned “we are one,” the video of the demonstration posted to social media pointedly did not show Coonrod’s refusal to participate.
The Giants lost the game against local rivals, the Los Angeles Dodgers, with a one to eight final score.
Coonrod’s brave stance is noticeable in the following photo of the pre-game demonstration:
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