Bruce Maxwell, A’s catcher that kneeled for anthem, denied service in hometown restaurant

Bruce Maxwell, a catcher for the A’s, made the decision earlier this year to kneel during the national anthem.

He received some backlash at the time, but also received support from fans in Oakland in the games after he made the demonstration.

That support isn’t universal though, as now a waiter in Maxwell’s hometown in Alabama refused to serve him on a recent trip home. According to a statement to TMZ Sports, Maxwell was home in Huntsville, Ala. having lunch with a local city councilman when he was refused service by the restaurant’s waiter.

According to Maxwell, the waiter asked for IDs when they were ordering drinks told the incident went down as such:

“He goes, ‘I voted for Trump, and I stand for everything he stands for.’ And I was like, ‘Oh, really?’ And our councilman went and got their manager and had some words with him and took him off of our table and put us another person on our table. That’s where I’m from.”

The Washington Post reports that the councilman, Devyn Keith, and Maxwell both decided not to identify the restaurant out of respect to the local businesses, with Keith saying, “I believe in the fact that this was an idiot doing a stupid thing than a small business doing something wrong.”

Huntsville was the location of a Trump rally where he made comments about NFL players kneeling, after which Maxwell made the decision to do the same himself.

Maxwell further commented on the situation on Twitter on Tuesday evening.

The good news is that Maxwell and Keith got a new server after bringing up the situation to management, so their experience at the restaurant wasn’t irredeemable.