Major League Baseball joined the NBA and NHL in postponing games Thursday night to help bring awareness to systemic racism.
But did commissioner Rob Manfred try to get teams to play?
Six baseball games, including the Boston Red Sox-Toronto Blue Jays matchup, were not played. The news comes in the wake of Jacob Blake being shot by police in Wisconsin.
The New York Mets and Miami Marlins also were scheduled to play, but instead showed a powerful moment of unity an hour before their first pitch was supposed to happen.
The two teams did not play, but a video caught Mets general manager Brodie Van Wagenen on a hot mic ripping Manfred for supposedly “pushing” players to play.
You can watch the whole video here.
“… At the leadership level, he doesn’t get it. He just doesn’t get it,” Van Wagenen can be heard saying.
Manfred issued a statement Thursday night regarding the incident.
“Over the past two days, players on a number of Clubs have decided not to play games,” the statement read. “I have said both publicly and privately that I respect those decisions and support the need to address social injustice.”
Read the whole statement from Manfred below:
Mets owner Fred Wilpon and COO Jeff Wilpon also issued a statements regarding the situation:
Yikes.
As of now, games for Friday are scheduled to take place as scheduled.
