every city name in California has three ways to pronounce it:
(1) the Spanish way
(2) the way an English speaker would pronounce it if they hadn't heard the name before
(3) the way locals actually pronounce it, which is neither of the previous two. like San Rafell and Beneesha
“we’re here to play baseball” he tells himself after going out of his way to make a statement completely unrelated to baseball while invalidating an entire community that is the fabric of the very city he plays in
in the US, about 95% of men identify as straight. so 5% are not straight. there are ~2,400 active players in the big 4. basic math says there should be ~120 non-straight players then. and yet there are 0 OPENLY gay/bi players. maybe pride is a little more necessary than you think
The origin of Pride Nights in sports was "Gay and Lesbian Night at Dodger Stadium", an apology to a lesbian couple who had been kicked out of a previous game
The whole idea is to show that everyone is welcome in baseball and people still can't grasp that a quarter century later
D-backs pitcher Ryan Thompson, who is a proclaimed Christian, spoke on the MLB warning SF Giants players who wrote Bible verses on Pride Night caps:
"I think there's a perceived negativity with this stuff. Landen Roupp wrote a verse on his hat that means he's anti something. That doesn't mean that. It means that he's pro something. So the rainbow means something to him. It means that he believes in the Noahic Covenant being something that's special to us as Christians."
"They were in for a rude awakening with the response and it wasn't just from the gay community. It was from the Northern California community that supports the gay community."
Five minutes of Mike Krukow on the Pride Night controversy via @knbrmurph & @MarkusBoucher.
"When you're a player in this environment, it's your responsibility to know just how sensitive this city is in regards to that culture of freedom in the way you live your life."
I hope that @sfgiants legend Jeremy Affeldt might have a talk with these pitchers. Affeldt was traded to the Giants as a young Christian conservative. Whenever he visited the city before that, he was afraid to leave his hotel room because of his trepidation about the LGBTQ culture in SF and "SF Values."
But the city transformed him.
“I see more San Francisco as a city of love and a city of passion and compassion. It’s unbelievable this city. To see that and to have my heart change as a city I didn’t ever want to come to, to a city that I’m so thankful I’m going to be part of for a long time, it talks about that. For me, it was an awesome deal.”
"He also credits a gay Starbucks employee for revealing his bias to him, recalling how the man’s casual interactions with Affeldt’s family showed him that there is “no difference, none” between gay people and straight people."
Affeldt created an organization to fight human trafficking during his years in San Francisco.
https://t.co/8TeEtHph8t
shane: okay so we're enemies but i get injured really bad and have no where else to go, so i-
ilya: who did this to you??
shane: oh yeah perfect you get it