The Atlanta Braves organization is not unfamiliar with seeing its star players speak up in moments of high tension and political turmoil.
Perhaps most famously, the organization embraced superstar slugger Hank Aaron as he endured racist taunts and death threats en route to breaking Babe Ruth’s single season home run record in 1974. And Aaron served as a consistent voice against the country’s enduring racism, inspiring younger African-American teammates like Dusty Baker, evoking the mistreatment of the Tuskegee Airmen during the COVID-19 epidemic, decrying the killing of George Floyd in 2020 and more.
And Aaron’s legacy of speaking out on social justice issues is apparently enduring in one of the Braves’ contemporary superstars.
Atlanta Braves Star Spencer Strider Comments On ICE Shooting Of Minneapolis Protestor Alex Pretti
Starting pitcher Spencer Strider turned heads when he shared an image of “The Boston Massacre Perpetrated in King Street,” a 1770 engraving by Paul Revere, on his Instagram account, as relayed on X.
Strider promoted the revolutionary tableau without comment, but the timing of his post made it clear that it was meant as his response to news that United States Immigration and Customers Enforcement (ICE) officers had killed a second protestor in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
“The fatal shooting of 37-year-old Alex Pretti by Border Patrol agents on Saturday has further escalated tensions in Minneapolis, a city now at the center of America’s heated battle over immigration enforcement,” Camilo Montoya-Galvez and Joe Walsh wrote for CBS News. “Pretti’s killing occurred less than three weeks after Renee Good, another Minneapolis resident and U.S. citizen, was shot and killed by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer.”
Minnesota Twins, Spencer Strider Among MLB Voices Responding To Latest ICE Killing
Pretti’s death is igniting further protests against ICE crackdowns and several star athletes and spokespeople for professional sports organizations have responded with more direct commentary. The Minnesota Twins were among the corporate signees of an open letter published on Sunday, calling for an “immediate deescalation of tensions” in the wake of Pretti’s death.
Strider’s post linked the killing with one of the turning points of the American Revolution, which saw occupying British soldiers fire unordered shots on a protesting crowd. Thanks in large part to the publication of Revere’s engraving, the moment became a rallying point for the anti-British sentiment that led to the Revolutionary War.
And that equivocation should lay bare Strider’s personal opinion about the latest high-profile instance of ICE enforcement. Strider also reposted statements about the shooting from former U.S. President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michell Obama, according to Rexwell Villas of ClutchPoints.
It seems that, like Aaron before him, the Braves superstar is using his platform to point out where the country is falling short on its founding commitments and ideals.