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Baseball players start the season with gestures against racism

IIn the first two games of the months-delayed American professional league MLB, the baseball teams also used gestures to protest racism. On Thursday (local time), the players went almost on one knee before the start, holding a long black ribbon. Before defending champions Washington Nationals defeated the New York Yankees, baseball pros got up for the national anthem again. In Los Angeles during the Dodgers duel against the San Francisco Giants, some players from both teams knelt during the anthem in the stadiums that were empty due to the corona crisis.

Many players also had one or two patches on their sleeves. “Black lives Matter” was on one, “United for Change” on the other. On the back of the throwing hill, a modified and black logo of the league was visible in the stadiums with the abbreviation BLM instead of the usual MLB.

Football pro Colin Kaepernick protested in 2016 with the knee during the anthem against racism and police violence against African Americans. There have been nationwide protests against racism since George Floyd’s death by a white policeman. Numerous athletes and their leagues have clearly positioned themselves.

American President Donald Trump is a major critic of kneeling during the anthem and had recently announced that he would no longer want to watch games in which this was the case. Before the first game between the Nationals and the Yankees, Trump announced that he would throw the symbolic first ball at a Yankees home game on August 15.

Corona expert Anthony Fauci received this honor at the start of the season. The 79-year-old director of the National Institute for Infectious Diseases did not cut a good figure and missed the catcher by several meters.

The Nationals then lost 1-4. The game was stopped after a long break due to heavy rain, lightning and thunder. The team from the capital had to compete without one of its best players. Juan Soto had tested positive for the corona virus and was not allowed to participate.

The Dodgers won their opening game 8-1. Before the start of the season, the league had decided after negotiations with the players to expand the playoffs from ten to 16 teams this year.

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