Baseball Primer Newsblog— The Best News Links from the Baseball Newsstand
Saturday, September 22, 2012
Kevin McClatchy, the owner and CEO of the Pittsburgh Pirates from 1996 to 2007, has acknowledged he is gay to The New York Times, saying frequent homophobic slurs he heard in baseball circles had convinced him to keep his sexual orientation a secret.
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1. Gamingboy Posted: September 22, 2012 at 02:22 PM (#4242969)Yawn.
I'm beginning to think that there there aren't any gay baseball players. I'm incredibly surprised by this, but I don't know how else to interpret the lack of active players who have come out.
I couldn't disagree more. Not only is a large section of the population still vehemently homophobic, but I think an even larger section of the public would be willing to toss around homophobic slurs just to get under an opposing player's skin. Any player who comes out is going to have to take levels verbal abuse unseen since MLB integrated.
Any fan who's verbally abusing a player with homosexual slurs is going to get thrown out of the ballpark.
Um, yes? And I don't care that they are gay. And that's cool, because society tells people that we shouldn't care. So I don't see what the issue is, or why it's even news that McClatchy is gay. Would "Ex-Pirates Owner McClatchy comes out as straight" make headlines? This is as newsworthy.
This one is for you, Ray.
define "large"
OTOH, those who oppose it are probably falling close to the "vehemently homophobic" description, but...I'm going to choose to define "vehement homophobia" as a fan who'd publicly call a player a "faggot" or otherwise virulent slur, knowing that there will be consequences. My guess for that population size would be less than 10%.
Ok here is one mostly useless statistic I have found...
"A study performed in 2007 in the UK for the charity Stonewall reports that up to 90 percent of the population support anti-discrimination laws protecting gay and lesbian people."
That would imply 3000 such fans out of a crowd of 30000. No way in 2012. In 1975 probably. I could see 10% being the types who would say things like that in quiet voices, when they are sure of who can hear them. The ones who will be obnoxious about it will be few, and will be quickly removed from the park.
I'm not sure we're quite there, but we're moving in that direction. And whoever comes out will be a cult hero for the gay community, and a minor celebrity that will transcend sport. If you're a scrub and you're secretly gay, I think near the end of your career it makes a ton of financial sense to come out, write a book, and cash in. Its kinda odd no one has done this yet.
A few players have done it after they were retired.
Billy Bean never should have written that book.
Never saw him sodomize.
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