Giants manager requires players to stand on field during anthem

The San Francisco Giants have a new manager who is changing the national anthem policy for players. At spring training, manager Bob Melvin said he’s requiring players to stand on the field during the anthem. 

The new policy represents a stark change from former manager Gabe Kapler, who started staying in the dugout during the anthem in 2022.

Melvin, who joins the Giants after managing the San Diego Padres for two seasons, said his policy isn’t dictated by politics. 

“It’s all about the perception that we’re out there ready to play,” the manager told the Athletic. “You want your team ready to play, and I want the other team to notice it, too. It’s really as simple as that.”

For years, the anthem has been anything but simple for the San Francisco Giants. Kapler, the former manager, stopped sanding on-field for the anthem after the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. He had previously kneeled during the anthem in 2020.

“When I was the same age as the children in Uvalde, my father taught me to stand for the pledge of allegiance when I believed my country was representing its people well or to protest and stay seated when it wasn’t,” Kapler wrote in a blog post in 2022. “I don’t believe it is representing us well right now.” 

Melvin did not address Kapler’s history with the anthem when explaining the new policy. 

“It has nothing to do with whatever happened in the past or whatever,” the new manager told USA Today on Friday. “It’s just something I embrace.”