In a thought-provoking piece in HuffingtonPost.com ("Baseball Justice"), Peter Drier suggests "five things that baseball could do to redeem itself to reflect the best of America's liberty-and-justice-for-all values." #5 is "Open the Closet""According to conventional wisdom, a gay teammate would threaten the macho camaraderie that involves constant butt-slapping and the close physical proximity of the locker room. So while there are no doubt homosexuals currently playing in the National Football League, National Basketball Association, and Major League Baseball, they are deep in the closet.
"Some players have come out after they retired. These include NFL players [Gay Games Ambassador] David Kopay, Roy Simmons, and [Gay Games Ambassador] Esera Tuaolo and [Gay Games Ambassador] NBA player John Amaechi. Only two gay former major league baseball players, Glenn Burke and [Gay Games Ambassador] Billy Bean, have come out of the closet. ...
"While Bean played for the Tigers, Dodgers, and Padres from 1987 to 1995, he pretended to date women, furtively went to gay bars, and hid his gay lover from teammates and fans. In his published memoir, Going the Other Way, Bean recounts how Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda constantly made homophobic jokes, even as Lasorda's gay son was dying from AIDS. Bean quit when he could no longer stand living a double life. When he came out publicly in 1999, his story made front-page news in the New York Times. In his autobiography, Behind the Mask, Dave Pallone--a major league umpire who was quietly fired in 1988 after rumors about his sexual orientation circulated in the baseball world--contends that there are enough gay major league players to create an All Star team."
Read the full article HERE.
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