For the past twenty summers, I’ve played slo-pitch in an LGBTQ+ softball league. I identify as a cis-hetero male, so over the years people have asked how I ended up there. The answer is pretty simple: the year I joined, there was a team-building event at work where we played softball. I hadn’t played since I was a kid but I still had the instincts and some skill. After the game, one of my colleagues asked if I wanted to join his team for the summer.
I said yes, for a number of reasons. I had just gone throughout a breakup and moved off-campus out on my own. I needed to meet new people. And unbeknownst to me, I needed to reconnect with a game I loved.
At the time, I had just finished (read: dropped out of) university. I had been without cable TV for several years and hadn’t been paying close attention to the Blue Jays. I also hadn’t played organized baseball for over a decade; my lasting impression of it was that I was an undersized person of colour trying to fit into a random patchwork of pre-teens, but I also couldn’t hit 60 mph fastballs being thrown by guys who were twice my size and had twice the hormones. I didn’t have the social or baseball chops to belong.
I didn’t know what to expect when I agreed to join the team. I showed up for my first practice, and before I had fielded a ground ball or taken BP, I was welcomed with open arms. I didn’t feel like my team needed me to prove my worth through my playing ability or effort; just showing up was good enough. That first season was a big learning experience for me. I never expected I would “come out” to my team as straight. I held a lot of assumptions regarding what being in a gay sports league looked like, most of which were dispelled. And I came to realize that everybody there has endured hardship/abuse/struggle to fit in, to belong, to simply exist as they are — and while my struggles weren’t exactly the same as theirs, that realization stuck with me. I thought that I had found “my people” from just a baseball point-of-view, but in retrospect, it was much more than that.
To this day, even with my tenure, I consider myself a guest in this league. I once said this out loud, within earshot of one of the league’s founders, and he immediately corrected me. Basically he said that everybody is (and has always been) welcome here — including the people for whom the league wasn’t targeted for. While I’ve been asked many times why I ended up in this league, I’ve never really been asked why I’ve stayed as long as I have. For me, the answer is simple: it’s where I learned to be a good teammate, it’s where I learned to be a coach, and most importantly, it’s where I learned to be an ally.
What’s more, it’s a place for people who have struggled to belong to something and to exist as who they are, whoever they are. We all need that place, in varying degrees, and we struggle to get to that place, in various degrees. Frankly, for many of us, that’s what fandom is. For all you who continue in this pursuit, I hope you are finding your place of belonging, whatever that looks like for you.
— JY
#quizlybean
What is the only Major League baseball team to have never held a Pride-related day/night/game for its LGBTQ+ fans and community?
John Amaechi, the first NBA player to come out as gay, was once traded for a player who made two All-NBA teams, three All-Star teams, an All-Rookie team, and who wore the same number for six different teams over the course of his NBA career. Name him.
What NHL agitator was somewhat surprisingly selected as his team’s ambassador for Hockey Is For Everyone month in partnership with You Can Play less than a year after being suspended for directing a homophobic slur at a referee?
What NFL team made history in 2021 as the first to ever have an official Pride Night at a regular-season game?
Answers from last week’s issue
⚾ A shortstop who won two Gold Gloves and a third baseman who would change positions before winning nine Gold Gloves were traded for a shortstop who never made an All-Star team or won a Gold Glove. Both the Gold Glove winners later managed the team they were traded from. Name the three players in this trade.
Before the 1982 season, the Philadelphia Phillies traded aging All-Star shortstop Larry Bowa and a third base prospect to the Chicago Cubs for Iván de Jesus, their starting (and younger) shortstop. That third base prospect moved over to second base when the Cubs acquired Ron Cey, and grew up to become Ryne Sandberg.
🏒 A player with the same first name as one of the three players in the question above was traded along with a guy who is top ten in NHL history in goals for a stay-at-home defenceman and a guy who is top twenty in NHL history in goals. Every player except the stay-at-home defenceman are in the Hall of Fame. Name at least three of the players involved in this trade.
The biggest deadline trade of 1989 came when Larry Murphy and Mike Gartner (#9 all-time in goals) were traded by the Washington Capitals to the Minnesota North Stars for Bob Rouse and Dino Ciccarelli (#19 all-time in goals).
🏀 A player with the same first name as one of the three Hall of Famers in the question above was traded from one conference to the other for four players — including a guy who is currently a head coach in the NBA, a guy who married a WNBA superstar, and a guy who was tragically murdered — and a pick. Name at least four players involved in this trade.
In 2008, the last part of the great 2000s Sacramento Kings core left the team via trade. Mike Bibby went to the Atlanta Hawks in exchange for Anthony Johnson, current Clippers coach Tyronn Lue, Shelden Williams (who was once married to Candace Parker), and Lorenzen Wright (who was tragically murdered in July, 2010). The second-round draft pick was used by the Kings to draft Sean Singletary.
Fun fact: according to the hat retailer Lids, Mike Bibby had the top-selling NBA player jersey in the state of Alabama last season.
🏈 A one-time Pro Bowl running back who is currently a free agent, this player — once name-checked by Inspectah Deck in a Czarface track — was traded for a sixth-round pick in 2019. The trade was between NFL teams that play in the two cities involved in the trade in the first question. Name him.
Jordan Howard was traded from the Bears to the Eagles. The Czarface track, “Bomb Thrown” (off CZARFACE Meets Metal Face, a collab with the late, great MF Doom) includes the lyric:
Blog about it naysayer, you can hardly doubt it / Who's the best? Who's the worst? We could argue hours / Runnin' through soldier field, I'm Jordan Howard / Nowadays they respect money more than power
#postscript
RIP Shoeless Joe Jackson and Jeff Gladney.
Many thanks to Billy Bean for being named his name and to you for being named your name, unless your name is Tommy Pham because however you slice this whole stupid affair, you’re wrong. Going after Joc Pederson was wrong. Dissing Mike Trout was wrong. Being this worked up about losing money on fantasy sports when you make $7,500,000 a year is both wrong and stupid, especially when you consider that you gave up an extra hundred grand for being suspended. Just stop.
Until next week, be the Ezequiel Carrera you wish to see in the world.
— DJ/JY