Rays’ Chris Archer explains why he won’t protest during the national anthem

Baseball players protested for the first time this weekend.

After more than a year of various NFL and NBA players protesting the mistreatment of black people by law enforcement via kneeling during the national anthem, a baseball player finally joined in with those athletes by kneeling before a game.

A’s catcher Brandon Maxwell held a one-man protest before his game on Sunday and spoke about why he chose to do so, and now Rays’ pitcher Chris Archer is explaining why he’s choosing not to publicly protest.

Pertinently, Archer says that while he won’t be participating in any protests, he understands why MLB players and his teammates may do so in the future, and that he agrees with their reasons why. Archer told the Tampa Bay Times that “I agree with the message. I believe in equality,” that there was no better way to do a protest than the way Maxwell did it, and that,

People that are high-ranking in our government have issues with what we're doing and have issues with certain people. I think it just kind of sends a message if it's done tastefully.

However, Archer won’t protest himself right now despite his opinion about the larger issues at hand because he has gotten “feedback” from his teammates that has lead him to believe it isn’t the best thing for him to do “at this time.”

He won’t clarify what that feedback is or whether he would reconsider if more players participated, but he comes back to the fact that it’s an issue that isn’t directly tied to baseball when explaining his viewpoint. Archer said,

I don't want to offend anybody, and no matter how you explain it or justify it some people just can't get past the military element of it. And it's not something I want to do, is ruffle my teammates' feathers over my personal views on something that has nothing to do with baseball.

Whether you agree with protesting, agree with Archer’s decision to decline in participating right now, or disagree with all of what’s happening across multiple sports, it’s likely that the more athletes take part, the more curious fans will be about otherwise socially conscious players not doing so.