MLB Owners and Executives

July 28, 2020

Dear Owners and Executives:

I am writing to you about the direction that your team and major league baseball has taken in regards to BLM and the narrative surrounding social justice.

I have included the letter of June 25th that I sent to Commissioner Rob Manfred directly by mail to his office in New York, which was written urgently and expressly to forewarn baseball that if it did not gain a broader perspective on what was really happening in America, it was sure to follow the obvious miscalculations and severely damaging missteps that others were making in not only misreacting to the George Floyd incident, but also in badly misinterpreting the real context of the social-racial dynamics involved. To date, I have not yet received a response to this letter.

Unfortunately, MLB and your team have fallen into a trap that should have been avoided by playing into the forces creating division in our country. This needs to be made right if baseball is going to maintain its sacred trust of integrity.

Understandably, MLB felt enormous pressure to make some sort of statement about “social justice” and show support and solidarity for a popular movement. On a superficial level, the things that were now just done (sewing BLM on patches, stenciling BLM on the pitcher’s mound, tolerating players kneeling during the national anthem) were an attempt to do this very thing. But at a deeper level, and what will register with millions of knowledgeable and intuitive Americans, is that what was done was at best a display of virtue signaling, and at worst the selling out of America and America’s values. To many good people, it appears as if America’s pastime has turned on America, just as many other corporate interests seem to have done the same.

The psychological effect on Americans of seeing baseball essentially prostrating itself before BLM, and especially seeing players kneeling during the national anthem is devastating and defeating. These behaviors reveal a siding with a viewpoint that is based entirely on a limited and warped perspective that shuts out the whole truth, and thereby distorts reality to such a great extent that it allows for certain isolated, bad situations to be exploited and lies to be generated. The tragedy of what happened to George Floyd is one thing, but what has happened in the aftermath, in terms of the breakdown of civil order and human brutality in the various cities that lent themselves to that anarchy, is a direct result of this exploitation.

The nightmare of spiked violence, killings (including of children), and mass assaults on police and civilians is continuous to this very hour and has taken on a life of its own, entirely independent of anything related to George Floyd. This injustice to the American people has so eclipsed the events surrounding George Floyd that it should have created a far greater outcry of concern than what we saw in the original “protests”.

This recent widespread disorder should alert every American to the reality that something greater is at play than legitimate concerns over racial injustice. So long as this greater reality is not addressed, and reckless statements related to our country are perpetuated—while the true threats to black lives are ignored— so long will the excuse for violence and chaos be perpetuated. Moreover, it is the most vulnerable people living in the inner city and poor neighborhoods that have been, and will be, most affected by this recent upswing in violence, as the police have been disempowered while the criminal element has been empowered.

By MLB supporting a marginal movement with a one-sided dialogue replete with false narratives, it has unwittingly participated in a propaganda campaign that is responsible for fueling the very problems that baseball’s concerns for social justice would suggest that it should want to reject. As such, baseball needs be part of the solution rather than being part of the problem.

And it is not just this one social issue—it’s everyone that goes against our whole moral, spiritual, and civic heritage. I think every owner and executive of a professional sports team should ask this question: “Should it be expected that Americans who love this country continue to watch and support professional sports if professional sports are going to continue to side with those whose agendas undermine our values and promote false or skewed narratives about America, the police, systemic racism, the family, etc.?”

Right now there is nothing more important for baseball in general, and your team in particular, than to make sure you are on the right side of God, truth, and history not only on this matter, but on others like it. The threat of Covid-19 shutting down the season pales in comparison to the threat of continuing the season with a cloud of falsehood hanging over it.

Baseball and your team need to develop a true position on this matter (and others), one that is mature, nuanced, educated, and whole, rather than the one that has been adopted, which is anything but these. I am fully prepared and more than capable of assisting you on this and I am offering you my help in a formal or informal capacity. I anticipated all of what played out related to this with the NFL three years ago and was way ahead of the curve with the information that I provided at the time, which has since proven to be exactly accurate.

Sincerely,
Jay Etzel