Sunday, May 19, 2013
Weiner: The Supreme Court Judge and the Curt Flood Case reenactment
(www.examiner.com)
Shades of Hairspray!...“It was a time of tradition, a time of values, and a time…to shake things up.”
Read More...For a journalist, chance encounters at a restaurant or a hair salon can become a major opportunity for advancing a story and in some instances the journalist is in the right place at the right time because he was with his wife. I had a very chance encounter with Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor on Saturday afternoon in lower Manhattan because my wife happened to have an appointment at a ...
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1 2 3 4 5 6 > Last ›I don't understand why people have trouble accepting that there are both good and bad qualities to a number of people. Curt Schilling included.
I don't understand why people have trouble accepting that there are both good and bad qualities to a number of people. Curt Schilling included.
Who is having trouble understanding that? And yes for someone who routinely advocates this or that and is extremely opinionated he should have said something during his playing days. Speaking out afterwards makes one a moral coward at best.
I'm assuming this quote means "At the time I knew certain guys were gay" and not "I played with 250 teammates and 3% of the population is gay so I must have played with 7 or 8 gay guys".
Having said that, it seems like there are probably a lot of ballplayers that know who is gay among their current or former teammates. Is the time right for some sort of group press conference? I mean, what if these players (EXAMPLE ONLY, NO INSINUATION): Tom Goodwin, Mickey Hatcher, Dave Winfield, Kevin Appier, Mike Schmidt, Jeff Fassero, and Bobby Ayala held a press conference and issued a statement like:
"We are gay, we were gay while we were playing. Some people knew, some didn't. It didn't seem to cause us any trouble. There were 2-3 gay players in every clubhouse and there are 2-3 gay players in every clubhouse today. Get over it."
I wonder if someone could gather up enough people to pull this off. Probably not Schilling, but still. It would certainly require less courage than one person announcing it.
Gods, I hate Curt Schilling as much as the next red blooded American, but this is just completely, terribly wrong.
Teammate: "I'm gay, and I'm not going to hide that from my teammates just to fit in, but I'd prefer that it not be a public aspect of my identity as a player."
Schilling: "MY TEAMMATE X IS GAY!"
No, no, no, no, no.
This is an issue where Schilling is on the side of the angels.
Otherwise known as the "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer Syndrome" or the "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner Syndrome".
Teammate: "I'm gay, and I'm not going to hide that from my teammates just to fit in, but I'd prefer that it not be a public aspect of my identity as a player."
Schilling: "MY TEAMMATE X IS GAY!"
No, no, no, no, no.
This is an issue where Schilling is on the side of the angels.
By not speaking out, didn't he enable discrimination?
If memory serves, Schilling took pretty much a "Republicans buy sneakers, too" (*) attitute toward the issues of the day as a player.
(*) Michael Jordan's famous line when refusing to endorse a candidate in the 1990 North Carolina Senate race between Harvey Gantt, Af-Am, and Jesse Helms, the most unreconstructed racist in American public life.
What was he supposed to say? "I have gay teammates, but I'm totally not going to tell you who?" There seems to be an undercurrent here that Schilling is wrong for not outing his semi-closeted teammate publicly. That is categorically wrong.
Teammate: "I'm gay, and I'm not going to hide that from my teammates just to fit in, but I'd prefer that it not be a public aspect of my identity as a player."
Schilling: "MY TEAMMATE X IS GAY!"
No, no, no, no, no.
This is an issue where Schilling is on the side of the angels.
Except that isn't the only option. Schilling didn't have to out anybody during his playing days but he most certainly could have addressed the issue, he chose not to do that. He also has now chosen to speak out about it and he has also chosen to reveal that he has played alongside gay teammates who apparently still wish it to be kept a secret since nobody has come out from Curt's playing days. Yet here he is opening the door to the kind of stuff you wish him not to do.
That there are almost certainly gays in MLB clubhouses and he supports their civil and human rights?
This is childish.
Also fundamentally wrong. Curt Schilling's ass is *huge.*
Which is what he just said. When was he supposed to say this prior to now? In 1996, back before even Andrew Sullivan was prepping the world for gay rights as we currently conceive them?
No, pretty much the opposite.
Oh, absolutely.
You'd think with more 24 hour news coverage, people's views on certain issues would diversify. I feel like they've narrowed into one bipolar spectrum, with large exceptions, of course.
Schilling is participating in a major political conversation about sports and sports culture in America. This conversation was not being had during his playing years. I find it absurd to hold the fact that he wasn't some sort of change agent against him. The conversation is being had now. He's on the side of the good guys. Keep him away from the tax coffers of Rhode Island and let it be.
Yes in 1996. Or in 2004 or in 2002 or 2005 or 2006 or 2007. But it is good to see Curt Schilling take a stand on things in baseball once he no longer works in baseball.
This conversation was not being had during his playing years.
Hogcock. Unlike Moneyball Bean really did write his book, it came out during Schilling's career and was talked about quite a bit.
Does anyone recall Schilling taking a stand on anything clubhouse or baseball related during his playing days?
Of course. Anyone can say somthing when it isn't controversial. It's not exactly Ali speaking out against Vietnam and the draft, now, is it?
Ok, first, we start a gay league...
I had a gay roommate in college for two years and remember the fear and dread in his face when he told us just before sophomore year room draw. We hugged him, told him it didn't matter as we knew him as a friend and as a fellow student and we moved on. The topic never came up again.
Honestly, the first openly gay player in the Majors will most likely have it a lot worse with the fans than in the clubhouse. Chances are he'll be accepted in the clubhouse pretty well. Sure, there will be some other players who won't like it, but they'll mostly be kept quiet by peer pressure, I would guess.
But fans? Especially opposing fans? They're going to be shouting every homophobic slur in the book at the guy, every single game.
Good lord. Do you equally damn every Negro League player who was not Jackie Robinson? I mean, they weren't historical agents of culture-shifting change, so they're clearly asshats and worth of scorn.
The slow advance of gay rights has made huge strides in the last ten years. The rights movement is now creeping into one of the final bastions of throwback dissent - the alpha male, testosterone driven world of professional sports. Many athletes today are still throw back troglodytes on the subject; see Robert Fick or the San Francisco 49ers. Curt Schilling is coming down as a very famous, near HOF caliber athlete on the side of good and right. And you want to hack his shins because he didn't do something a decade back, and be an activist during his playing days?
With those sort of absurd standards you're going to find very few friends of your cause, man. Good ####### lord.
Otherwise, he really would have no way of knowing how gays hit with runners in scoring position.
But teh spending!!!
Not buying Dave Winfield. Everybody else I could see. Especially Mickey Hatcher.
A great failing of the internet (or more likely, of my ability to negotiate the internet) is that it has not horked up a fabulous photo of Dave Winfield grimacing following a called strike three. His spine is arched backwards, his head is thrown back, his eyes are closed, and he's using both hands to grip his baseball bat, the knob resting against his crotch, at the absolutely perfect lewd angle from his groin. In the real context of the game, it was frustration; but on a purely visual basis, it looks like the definition of ecstasy.
Which still doesn't make it a signifier of "gayness," but I still wanna see that photo again.
Nah. Most people have had civility drilled into them by now. Even if they don't support gay rights they can be civil about it. There will be some bad apples. Security will remove them.
They've gotten pretty good at it. About 10 years ago I remember some A-hole in Camden yards shouting such slurs near the opposing team's bullpen. Yelling at both the relievers and any fan who looked at him funny. He was allowed to continue, don't think security would have done much unless fists came out.
These days, it doesn't happen. You act like that, you may or may not get a warning. Then you get thrown out. I can't speak for every ballpark but I don't think a gay player on the opposing team would have to worry about any more boos in Baltimore than his teammates get.
Come to think about it, they will probably be treated much better than Yunel Escobar. After the suspension last year he was singled out for boos.
I feel like you haven't been to too many ballgames. Once the college-age morons get drunk, civility seems to be more of an abstract, theoretical ideal than a description of actual behavior.
Well, sometimes people know what the right thing to do is but just don't have the courage at the time to act on it. Hopefully, they come around later or get another opportunity to prove themselves and handle things better. It's part of being human. Sometimes we screw up and sometimes we get a shot at redemption. Reminds me of the whole Chris Evert-Martina Navratilova thing. In recent years Evert has admitted that BITD she should have used her celeb status to publicly support Navratilova when Martina came out. Martina lost a lot of endorsement opportunities after she came out; Chris has stated that she was afraid to stand up and be counted as a Martina supporter at the time for fear of being branded right along with Martina.
Kind of like HOF voters and Bert Blyleven. Sometimes it just takes time for people to see the light.
Well...some people will come around...eventually. Some other people, however, are just a**es and aren't ever going to change their minds. The sad thing is there doesn't seem to be any end to the supply of a**es.
Sources at BTF are now reporting that Mickey Hatcher is gay.
The slow advance of gay rights has made huge strides in the last ten years. The rights movement is now creeping into one of the final bastions of throwback dissent - the alpha male, testosterone driven world of professional sports. Many athletes today are still throw back troglodytes on the subject; see Robert Fick or the San Francisco 49ers. Curt Schilling is coming down as a very famous, near HOF caliber athlete on the side of good and right. And you want to hack his shins because he didn't do something a decade back, and be an activist during his playing days?
With those sort of absurd standards you're going to find very few friends of your cause, man. Good ####### lord.
I have no idea why you are taking such an extreme stance on this issue as well as trying to force other people's view into extreme stances. Curt Schilling for almost his entire playing career went along to get along. Then as soon as he no longer has to face his teammates, fellow union members, fans, execs, owners, or press on a daily basis he comes out with his opinions on a variety of baseball issues. That does show a certain level of cowardice on his part. I don't really care what his opinion is on something and what he was commenting on wasn't what I was addressing in my comments. I'm merely noting that Schilling wasn't a strong enough person to voice his opinion when he would actually have to face the music.
Or get naked with a bunch of other dudes. Just saying. If I were in a women's locker room I would be looking at them, even if I were pretending not to.
I'm no fan of Curt Schilling's politics for the most part, but I find this unfair. When was Schilling ever previously asked about gay rights and equality, to the point where he felt compelled to offer a public opinion? (Maybe it has come up before; who knows.) He wasn't a closet sharia-law advocate trying to get on the local school board; he was a ballplayer. His take on gay rights (or any other issue, really) isn't any more meaningful or valuable than yours or mine.
How about after sharing a locker room for a week? A month? 6 months? 3 years?
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