Chicago Cubs players showed their support for Parkland shooting victims as they took the field on Opening Day Thursday against the Miami Marlins.
Anthony Rizzo and other players wore burgundy shirts with the hashtag #MSDStrong written on them for the students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, where 17 people were killed in a school shooting last month. (RELATED: Chicago Cubs Star Calls For Change At Candlelight Vigil For School Shooting)
#MSDStrong pic.twitter.com/Wn8cN917by
— Chicago Cubs (@Cubs) March 29, 2018
#EverybodyIn pic.twitter.com/02XclLX9H6
— Chicago Cubs (@Cubs) March 29, 2018
At game time, both clubs were also spotted with red ribbon patches on their uniforms that read “MSD.”
Marlins and Cubs both wearing ribbons for Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School massacre victims. pic.twitter.com/huCqfAPEyv
— Paul Lukas (@UniWatch) March 29, 2018
Rizzo, who has been very vocal in his support of gun control, told reporters before the game that it’s a little “too easy” to get a gun.
“In a perfect world, make it stricter, make background checks a little harder to get these guns,” the Cubs star hitter and former Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School graduate shared. “I think it’s a little too easy to go in there and get a gun. I think pretty much the entire nation can agree on that. There’s a number of other things, but my biggest thing is you can make it harder to get guns.”
Days after the shooting, Rizzo left the club’s training camp in Arizona and traveled home to be at the candlelight vigil and share some words of support.
“There are a lot of communities out there that know exactly what we’re going through right now and have to relive these moments again and again,” Rizzo shared. “While I don’t have all the answers, I know that something has to change before this is visited on another community, and another community, and another community.”