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Welcome back to Talkin’ Gaysball where we wonder why a sportswear brand would dub itself “Jesus Won” when baseball literally has a stat called “saves…”
One of the subtly terrible aspects of the Giants Pride Night fiasco was how it opened up the floodgates for the worst people online to post disingenuous anti-gay hot takes they’d clearly been holding onto for a long time.
Perhaps the most representative example occurred in a column by OutKick’s Jon Root. Which shouldn’t be too surprising as typing the words “disingenuous anti-gay hot takes” summons OutKick writers the way saying “Beetlejuice” three times manifests Michael Keaton.
Root jumped on the story of Landen Roupp and his bullpen mates defacing their rainbow caps to make the outlandish call to abolish Pride Nights altogether because in his words, “Sports should be politically neutral.”
Because as anyone who has actually attended a Pride Night in person knows, they’re a nine-inning slog of teams lecturing all in attendance about “controversial social issues” and not an upbeat and fun atmosphere in any way, shape, or form.
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The only reason to play “Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)” in the fourth inning is to convince every fan in attendance to accept Socialism by the eighth. It’s a Swedish long game, people.
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While Root’s column was over the top in its fatuousness, every year numerous Pride Night haters spew talking points similar to the ones he expressed.
Check out the replies to any team’s “Happy Pride” post and you’ll find endless misspelled variations on “sports leagues should remain neutral on controversial social issues” and “players should not be used as political posterboys.”
So I’m sure most of these same people must be up in arms about a popular Christian athleticwear brand that players are promoting during batting practice and TV interviews called Jesus Won Apparel.
As the name implies, they produce a series of T-shirts and hoodies bearing their label’s name in various MLB team styles.
Which means there is a design where “Jesus Won” is written in New York Mets font. Dear reader, I can’t make up a better punchline than that.
According to the brand’s website, several of the “Jesus Won” shirts have established collaborations with big league players like Evan Carter, Logan Gilbert and Ryan Thompson.
Why look, even anti-Pride cap reliever JT Brubaker sports one! What an astonishing coincidence. If we take the message of his hoodie at face value, Jesus has more wins in 2026 than Brubaker himself.
As their website spells it out, its mission is “to start conversations about Jesus and raise financial support for Kingdom-minded causes.”
It certainly sounds like the purpose of Jesus Won is to spread an especially proselytizing strain of Christianity throughout the game.
And players are certainly allowed to do so! Indeed, pro athletes have talked up their faith for as long as sports have existed.
But this is also not a politically neutral stance, especially considering *gestures frantically at everything*.
So I will now sit back and wait for the OutKick, Barstool and “it’s just about baseball” crowd to tell Jesus Won Apparel that players should not be used as political posterboys and to stick to sports…
(Time goes by. So slowly. So slowly.)
Hmm…seems to be taking a while…
(Outward expansion of space reverses and the universe collapses on itself.)
I’m sure OutKick is just double-checking that every claim is properly sourced and vetted before hitting publish…
(Godot shows up. And leads the Cubs to another championship.)
Huh. Crickets.
It’s almost like the anti-Pride crew selectively applies principles like “sports should be politically neutral” only when it’s convenient to support their previously held homophobic ideology.
But when sports aligns with their evangelical Christian view of the world, that’s just players freely expressing their sincerely held religious beliefs.
As the great Mr. Carlin once observed, “Must be another one of those ‘miracles.’”
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