Wednesday, May 15, 2013
BPro: Listen to What the Heyman Said
(www.baseballprospectus.com)
With the Yang-Mills existence problem seemingly solved…we now move on to the Heyman existence problem. Or something.
Read More...And sometimes there isn’t much you can do. I wrote what I did about Hawk Harrelson and The Will To Win because at some point, you have to come to the conclusion that someone isn’t worth talking to anymore. Hawk’s problem wasn’t that he was wrong, it was that he was stuck in a frame of mind that starts from conclusions and will, when it cares to, circle back around to ...
Reader Comments and Retorts
Go to end of page
Statements posted here are those of our readers and do not represent the BaseballThinkFactory. Names are provided by the poster and are not verified. We ask that posters follow our submission policy. Please report any inappropriate comments.
Page 1 of 5 pages
1 2 3 4 5 >Giggity.
There are only two sorts of people in this discussion.
Those that 'would support a gay teammate'
and
Those who are ####### scumbags
The fact that the latter exist makes me sad...
Bears get lovin, too...
Young - 38
Weaver - 30
What you're seeing his is the same generational shift you see in the population at large, with some holdover in the manly-man segments that necessarily skew the data set of professional athletes.
Wow, I still think of him as a young pitcher.
My grandpa still drops the n-word like it's nothing. He's not a scumbag, he's just set in his ways and no amount of social reconditioning is going to magically transform him into a card-carrying member of the ACLU.
So could we stop with the namecalling? It is, ironically, really intolerant of other people's situations. Your last sentiment sums up the correct emotion: pity.
Oh, and a dash of hope could be thrown in there ...
This is a generational thing.
Another site where I read a recap of this mentioned that the previous episode had 4 views. I don't think too many of anyone is actually watching these.
Yeah, I still have him penciled in as Jeff's punk kid brother. Maybe 25-26, tops.
i wish that more of the guys who are dmeat hook's age just said - played with gay guys - shrug - like, so what. i know some ball player who is a big time Ultra Christian - was it smoltzie - said something like that and it didn't get enough pub.
but times really are changing - the guys just coming up are not so freaked by guys coming out. guys grow up with gay parents, gay friends, friends gay parents. it's like - whatever. although unfortunately homo haters are still too loud and proud in high schools. i hope that very very soon that gay people will not have to come out as gay any more than we do as White, Black, Hispanic, Asian
I doubt it was Smoltz, who is best known on this issue for comparing gay marriage to bestiality.
I have mixed feelings here.
1) Most of us are wrong about some stuff, people are complicated - I'm reluctant to judge somebody by their stance on an issue or two. (Or in general, really.)
2) OTOH, lots of other people have managed to figure out basic civility and decency by now. Being set in your ways is not a valid excuse.
Mike Timlin, who is in fact a devout Christian, said that quite a long time ago.
Those that 'would support a gay teammate'
and
Those who are ####### scumbags
The fact that the latter exist makes me sad...
What about those that just don't care?
don't care if someone is straight or gay is actually support. i would think guys would be relieved to have a gay teammate. no prob if your wife is whatshername sandberg gonna go after him. no worrying about some guy wanting to swap wives and families.
sometimes i think that some guys don't want a gay teammate because they don't want to know what it is like to be sexually hassled like they sexually hassle females
That's a good turn of phrase.
What about those that just don't care?
In this context, that's the same as supporting a gay teammate, which means treating that person like you would anyone else on the team.
Clearly, the poster is a racist.
But.
Whereas I am full of generational and cultural understanding and acceptance for that age group, I am similarly not, AT ALL, for Fick and Young's group. If K's grandfather is 67 (and he might be older) that's 30 years on. I'm not going to have that same allowance for people younger than me, who grew up through the 80s and later. Move on into the future or prepare thyself for the shit rightfully spoken in your direction. (And for 67, my allowance isn't exactly generous, but at least it exists.)
You could fit an ocean in the gap between "dropping the n-word like it's nothing" and being "a card-carrying member of the ACLU." How about, for instance, keeping overtly racist comments to himself, or even not being racist? Also, what is the point of saying "card-carrying member?" Are you trying to invoke the ACLU as the modern analog to the communist party, and every bit as interested in destroying core American values? Perhaps not, but I'd be interested to hear what other possible reason there is for the invocation of that loaded phrase.
Fick and Young are of our generation and should be more tolerant than Boomers, yes. But in every generation you will have a distribution of positions (on any given topic) not unlike a bell curve, and some members of our generation are going to be "throwbacks." It is likely that the slice of the sample who skews to "throwback" is also going to be over represented in the slice of the sample that includes "high end professional athletes."
No one. Bruce is being hypersensitive and overplaying the "Christians are the new cool persecuted class."
OK, by support I assumed you meant something more.
Just talking personally, I have worked with gays, and I treat them like everyone else. I view it as none of my business.
But, that doesn't extend to approving of their lifestyle choices.
i think back to the whole tim hardaway situation, and i just think that 9 times out of 10, when a professional athlete makes a comment like this, the least productive response is to jump down his throat and call him a \"####### scumbag".
That's okay, I don't approve of a lot of what the Catholic Church has to say/believes, either. I guess we can agree to disagree?
Sure. I also don't approve of heterosexual fornication or adultery; it's not specifically a gay thing.
As long as neither of us tries to force the other to act against his convictions, we should be able to agree to disagree.
Being gay isn't a lifestyle choice, Snap.
The problem is that you disapprove of gay "lifestyle choices," by which you mean "fornication and adultery," but you also disapprove of social structures that bring gay relationships into the construct of marriage, thus allowing for non-adulterous, non-fornacational relationships. Your position denies heteros the pleasure of non-marriage based relationships, but it denies gays and lesbians *any* relationship.
You can be against loose lifestyles and cheap sex, or you can be against marriage and culturally conservative relationship building. You can't rationally be against both.
Correct. And I don't believe the orientation is morally wrong or sinful in any way.
Choosing to have sex with someone of the same sex is a lifestyle choice, just like choosing to have sex with someone of the opposite sex.
You can be against loose lifestyles and cheap sex, or you can be against marriage and culturally conservative relationship building. You can't rationally be against both.
Yes, you can. It depends on your view of sexuality and it's proper exercise. You only can't reconcile them under the modernist view of sex as recreation, that people have a right to.
The alternative is unjust. You are consigning an entire class of people to complete and total abstinence, just for being born wired to love someone of the same sex.
EDIT: and of course the concept of human relationships having an "objective order" is false, on the merits, but we're never going to agree on that.
Should barren straight people be having sex?
If Robert Fick (or a player of his caliber) had come out during his career, he probably would have been shunned by several/many of his teammates. Weaver says to "bring on" a gay teammate who is ".300 with 40 and 140." A gay superstar would change things immediately (plus, can you imagine the jersey sales?).
So when people felt the need to bring the word "Christian" into the argument repeatedly--not just once but repeatedly--that's when I felt the need to say that homophobia is not restricted to those of the Christian faith.
"John, you misunderstood me when I said I liked bears."
Depends how hot they are.
Page 1 of 5 pages
1 2 3 4 5 >You must be Registered and Logged In to post comments.