On Saturday, the Giants will become the first big-league team to incorporate Pride colors into their uniform as they celebrate Pride Month.
For San Francisco Pride Day, the Giants will wear an SF logo Pride Patch on the right sleeve of their home jersey and a custom cap that incorporates the Pride colors into the SF logo for their game against the Cubs. The 11 colors of the logo are emblematic of the Progress Pride Flag and signify inclusion and progression with the six Pride colors, along with black and brown to recognize LGBTQ+ people of color and light blue, pink and white to recognize those who are transgender.
“I’m very proud that the San Francisco Giants are taking this step,” manager Gabe Kapler said. “I’m very proud to be a part of it and I’m looking forward to the impact and the support that we can provide for the LGBTQ+ community.”
Roscoe Mapps, the Giants’ vice president of external affairs, said that he was in a meeting when the team announced the uniform plans and he was overwhelmed by the response.
“I started getting messages from a variety of people, some officials, some friends in the community, some leaders, and even some colleagues internally who were saying, ‘This is phenomenal. I feel seen. This is incredible,’ which is what we were hoping for, you know?” Mapps said. “I started getting chills in the middle of the meeting.”
Mapps said the Giants’ front office and Kapler had a role in the planning, along with many others in the organization.
“The jersey was something that was in a lot of people’s mind, and we just wanted to do it right,” Mapps said. “This when diversity in an organization is really important, because you can talk to people who are representing the community to get their understanding and their take about, ‘Do we do six colors to add 10 colors? Do we do 11?’
“The thing that was really cool for me was, as somebody who’s queer, is that everybody was engaged in those conversations, whether I was there or not and everybody was kind of on the same page for why we wanted to do this, why now and why it was important. And there was never really a question about it. I think that that says a lot about our organization, but it also says a lot about how much the community has meant to us and has impacted us.”
Mapps said the cap will be on sale at the Giants’ team store this month, although it might not be available Saturday. Those who purchase a special-event ticket for Saturday also will receive a commemorative T-shirt.
The team will honor former San Francisco Supervisor Tom Ammiano, the first openly gay teacher in the city, before the game. The Pride Flag will be raised by co-founders and members of the San Francisco Transgender Cultural District, and the palm trees in Willie Mays Plaza will be wrapped in the 11 colors of the Pride Flag. The Oracle Park scoreboard will display Pride colors throughout June.
In addition, the Giants will present Pride movie nights at Oracle Park, with “In the Heights” at 8 p.m. June 11 and “Everybody’s Talking about Jamie” at 8 p.m. June 12.
Susan Slusser covers the Giants for The San Francisco Chronicle. Email: sslusser@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @susanslusser
