The Ben Shapiro Show - June 17, 2026


Major League Baseball Cracks Down on Faith Expression on the Mound

Breaking Down the Newsom Investigations and the Latest Midterm Projections The Truth About the American Affordability Crisis And Why Don Lemon Is Wrong

Episode Stats


Length

9 minutes

Words per minute

173.11

Word count

1,633

Sentence count

113

People

Also mentioned:
Laverne Cox Little Laverne Landon Roop Kevin James Adam Sandler Austin Hufford Chris Ruffo Howard Chuck Larry Noah

Harmful content

Misogyny

1

sentences flagged

Toxicity

6

sentences flagged

Hate speech

9

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

A few San Francisco Giants pitchers wrote Bible verses on their Pride themed baseball caps, and the MLB got very angry about it. The league said it's a uniform violation, and warned them about future violations, but what does the Bible say about homosexuality and sexual desires on a baseball cap say about it? Plus, we talk about why the MLB should not be forcing players to wear rainbow baseball caps on Pride Night in the year 2026, and why Laverne Cox should be hired by the Giants.

Transcript

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Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 A few San Francisco Giants pitchers made headlines this week when they wrote Bible verses on their rainbow pride themed baseball caps.
00:00:06.000 And then the MLB got very angry at them for it.
00:00:09.000 The MLB says it's just a uniform violation.
00:00:12.000 But we kind of know that the MLB should not be forcing their players to don rainbow baseball hats for Pride night in the year 2026.
00:00:19.000 Also, we'll get into Laverne Cox's alleged impoverishment since the decline of DEI.
00:00:25.000 Maybe the Giants should hire him.
00:00:27.000 Now, as I've said many, many times before, I do not think that we need to have. 0.99
00:00:32.000 Pride nights. 1.00
00:00:33.000 I think this is really, really dumb. 0.99
00:00:35.000 It turns out that having a night to celebrate sexual acts and sexual desires on your baseball cap is a weird move. 0.99
00:00:48.000 It's a weird move and it puts people in an awkward position.
00:00:51.000 So, three San Francisco Giants pitchers who didn't actually agree with Pride night, they instead wrote Bible verses.
00:00:58.000 The MLB then issued a statement saying, The writing on the cap violates our rules and consistent with normal practice, we have warned the players about future violations.
00:01:08.000 The league said, 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.
00:01:16.000 We respect the player's right to free expression.
00:01:18.000 However, writing of any kind with any message is prohibited per Major League Baseball's uniform regulations, which provide in part that any player may not write, attach, affix, embroider, or otherwise display names or messages on apparel or playing equipment.
00:01:29.000 We have given the same warning numerous times in the past to players for messages such as Dad, Happy Mother's Day, I Love Mom, and the names of family members.
00:01:37.000 So, the right hander, Landon Roop, started the game with Genesis 9, 12 through 16 written on his cap.
00:01:45.000 And a couple of other pitchers also had Bible verses on their caps.
00:01:51.000 So, just for those who are trying to remember Genesis 9, Genesis 9, 12 through 16, I'm going to look it up.
00:01:58.000 This would be God declaring that the rainbow is the token of his covenant after the flood of Noah.
00:02:05.000 So, again, the idea here would be that the rainbow that's on the cap really should not be signifying homosexual activity.
00:02:11.000 The rainbow, most prominently in Western civilization, meant God's promise not to destroy the earth for its sins, for the sins of the people.
00:02:20.000 Well, Landon Roop, the San Francisco Giants pitcher, had comments on this.
00:02:24.000 Here's what he had to say.
00:02:26.000 First of all, as a believer, I would push them to read the Bible.
00:02:32.000 I think God has blessed me in so many ways, and I don't think I'd be here right now if it wasn't for him.
00:02:40.000 So, yeah, like I said, there's no hate in it at all.
00:02:46.000 You know, we're, like I said, we live in a country where you're welcome to believe what you want.
00:02:54.000 There's freedom of speech and stuff like that.
00:02:56.000 So that's really all I have to say about that.
00:03:01.000 I'm just thankful that God's put me in this situation and that I can go out and, you know, share his kingdom.
00:03:08.000 Now, again, I generally agree with the MLB rule that you're not supposed to write on your cap, but let's be very clear writing on your normal San Francisco Giants cap.
00:03:17.000 Would obviously be a violation of the rules.
00:03:20.000 When you make the cap inherently political by turning it into a political messaging billboard and someone disagrees with that political message, that is a different kind of thing.
00:03:29.000 No, they should not be fined for that any more than somebody should theoretically be fined if there had been some sort of night that paid tribute to, say, a traditional marriage group and a gay player or ally of LGBT groups decided to put some sort of message on the cap.
00:03:48.000 Do you think that person would have been fined?
00:03:50.000 I don't know.
00:03:51.000 I have doubts.
00:03:51.000 But then again, the MLB would never allow that kind of night in the first place.
00:03:55.000 Pretending that very political things are apolitical is one of the ways that the left is able to foster its messaging.
00:04:01.000 If you've been listening to this show for a while, you've probably heard me talk about Balance of Nature.
00:04:05.000 If you're sitting there thinking, okay, Ben, you mentioned this company a lot, what's the real story?
00:04:08.000 So here's the real story.
00:04:09.000 First of all, we genuinely like Balance of Nature here at the Daily Wire.
00:04:12.000 It's a regular part of my routine.
00:04:14.000 It's become popular around the office as well.
00:04:16.000 People are using it because you feel healthier when you use it.
00:04:18.000 It's pretty simple.
00:04:19.000 Most of us know we should be getting more fruit, veggies, fiber, whole food ingredients into our daily lives.
00:04:24.000 The problem is that real life gets in the way.
00:04:25.000 You wake up with the best of intentions, and then you have meetings and deadlines and kids.
00:04:29.000 That's why I appreciate products that make it easier to stay consistent.
00:04:32.000 Balance of Nature's whole health system is made from real fruits, veggies, spices, fiber.
00:04:36.000 I'll tell you something else.
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00:04:39.000 Kids love them.
00:04:39.000 They don't make a mess.
00:04:40.000 In fact, later this month, I'll be sitting down with Dr. Howard.
00:04:43.000 He's the founder of Balance of Nature.
00:04:44.000 I'm looking forward to asking him about why he started the company and the philosophy behind the products.
00:04:49.000 If you've heard me talk about Balance of Nature before, but you haven't checked them out yet, go take a look.
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00:05:00.000 That's balanceofnature.com.
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00:05:03.000 Meanwhile, Chris Ruffo and Austin Hufford are writing in City Journal about a gay certification program that is happening in California, which is very, very exciting stuff.
00:05:13.000 I'm pumped up about this.
00:05:15.000 In California, state Democrats have embraced a kind of favoritism contract for state certified gay owned businesses. 0.96
00:05:22.000 The scheme operates through the California Public Utilities Commission, which regulates privately owned utility companies.
00:05:30.000 Now, that's weird.
00:05:32.000 How exactly do you get certified? 0.93
00:05:34.000 As a gay owned business? 0.98
00:05:36.000 Well, apparently you have to have some letters. 0.96
00:05:40.000 So that means to prove a business is lesbian owned, you have to send an affidavit, a birth certificate, or a therapist saying that you are gay. 0.63
00:05:56.000 What? 0.97
00:05:57.000 Uh huh.
00:05:59.000 Can we just suggest that maybe if you have racial or sexual preferences that we not actually do?
00:06:07.000 The preferences?
00:06:08.000 What if we just didn't do the preferences?
00:06:09.000 What if we treated those as presumptively illegal?
00:06:12.000 What if we did that?
00:06:13.000 But also, it's going to get a little weird if you have to go to your therapy. 0.80
00:06:16.000 Like, first of all, you can certainly see what was that Kevin James Adam Sandler movie where they pretend to be gay for the benefits? 0.63
00:06:26.000 I knew that Savvy would know the answer to this question immediately. 0.70
00:06:29.000 I pronounce you Chuck and Larry, right?
00:06:31.000 Is that what it was?
00:06:31.000 Okay, well, it's that.
00:06:34.000 It's that except in California.
00:06:36.000 So great job, everyone.
00:06:37.000 California is doing a spectacular job, as always.
00:06:42.000 Meanwhile, Laverne Cox is having a tough time as a trans woman in Trump's America.
00:06:46.000 Laverne Cox was very famous for a hot moment because he was in Orange is the New Black.
00:06:51.000 This is when the trans movement was at its apex.
00:06:55.000 Laverne Cox is very upset because it turns out that his business bookings have gone down.
00:07:03.000 Over the past two years, she, according to the New York Times, has lost 90% of her income.
00:07:09.000 Hosting contracts have ended and not been renewed.
00:07:11.000 Corporate speaking engagements have dried up.
00:07:15.000 Well, it turns out that because everybody was banning DEI, nobody was forced to pay money to Laverne Cox.
00:07:15.000 Why?
00:07:22.000 Because if you are not actively being promoted by the government, then apparently you can't get a job. 1.00
00:07:28.000 Laverne Cox also has some weird dating experiences.
00:07:32.000 All righty, I guess we're going to have to do this now.
00:07:36.000 I just refuse to betray myself again.
00:07:40.000 And when you mentioned Little Laverne, I smiled because I was like, that.
00:07:47.000 This is adult Laverne taking care of little Laverne, making sure that she's safe, that she's not put in situations that make her feel unsafe again because she's felt unsafe most of her life.
00:08:00.000 So that I love her and I'm expressing that love and care for her.
00:08:10.000 So that just makes me smile.
00:08:12.000 As much as that breakup was traumatizing, and then talking about it publicly, so many people turned.
00:08:21.000 On me because I dated a man who was a cop and voted for Trump three times.
00:08:27.000 And I get that.
00:08:28.000 I get why people were upset with me about that.
00:08:31.000 But, you know, what I have to say this every time I mention this is that I never adapted or promoted any Trump policies or any Republican policies.
00:08:46.000 I've remained committed to fighting for trans liberation, for black liberation, for reproductive rights.
00:08:54.000 For a living wage.
00:08:56.000 And so I fell in love with someone who has opposing political beliefs.
00:09:02.000 But I think sometimes people think just because you are in a relationship with someone, you co sign their politics.
00:09:10.000 Why wasn't this person getting paid hundreds of thousands of dollars last year to speak?
00:09:15.000 Inspirational stuff.
00:09:17.000 What an amazing video you just watched.
00:09:19.000 Wasn't that amazing?
00:09:20.000 Well, you know, if you think so, head on over to dailywire.comslash subscribe to watch the full show ad free or check out this crazy story here.