Yankees take a knee before national anthem on Opening Day

Earlier today, Yankees manager Aaron Boone held his pregame press conference while wearing a Black Lives Matter t-shirt. He also told reporters that the team plans to make their own statement supporting BIPOC.

We’ve had conversations as an organization. We’ve had conversations as a team. We’ve had smaller group conservations, conversations with one another. We kind of decided as a team, not that necessarily everyone will be wearing these [t-shirts] for batting practice, I know a lot of guys are, I felt like I wanted to wear it. Tonight, as a team, we’ll have our own demonstration moving forward.

Players seen wearing Black Lives Matters shirts in batting practice include Giancarlo Stanton, Aaron Judge, Gary Sanchez, Gleyber Torres, Gio Urshela, Miguel Andujar, Aaron Hicks, and Luke Voit.

Both teams held a long, black drape while the stadium jumbotron played the One Team. One Dream video. The Yankees and Nationals also took a knee after a video package, narrated by Morgan Freeman, aired. They stood up, however, for the playing of the national anthem.

The Yankees had several players speak up in the days following the killing of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers. Stanton was the first to acknowledge the tragedy, while James Paxton shared some deeply personal reflections. You can find a thread with the entire organization’s response here.