Dodgers reliever Blake Treinen said he was “chastised” by Major League Baseball last year, after writing Charlie Kirk’s name on his hat in a game following the conservative political activist’s killing.
During an outing against the San Francisco Giants last September, Treinen had “Charlie Kirk” written between two cross symbols on the side of his Dodgers hat days after Kirk was assassinated at an event on a college campus in Utah.
As he first told the Los Angeles Times, and later confirmed to The California Post, Treinen received a warning from a league official following the outing regarding an MLB policy against putting messages of any kind on game uniforms.
“They called me and said that they have issues with people writing stuff on the hats,” Treinen told the California Post on Friday.
The league’s uniform policy has been in the spotlight again this week, after MLB issued similar warnings to four Giants pitchers who wrote bible verses on their hats during that club’s recent Pride Night game.
“The writing on the cap violates our rules and consistent with normal practice we have warned the players about future violations,” MLB said in an initial statement that was widely released to media outlets Monday.
“To be clear, this routine verbal warning not to wear the hat in future games is not disciplinary and had absolutely nothing to do with the content of the message,” the league added in a follow-up statement on Tuesday.
In Treinen’s case from last year, he said he was not otherwise disciplined, but was told by MLB that he could be fined for putting any message on his uniform again.
During the Dodgers’ own Pride Night game earlier this month, Treinen did not wear the team’s Pride-themed hat when he took the mound for a ninth-inning appearance against the Angels on June 5.
“My job is to abide by the rules,” Treinen told the LA Times regarding that decision. “Ultimately, the only rule we have is to wear our team-issued uniform. So that’s what I chose to do.”