Claiming that O.G.’s recent fag flap has provoked “zero discussion or genuine concern about whether an openly gay athlete could survive in high school, college or pro sports today”, the Daily Herald’s Barry Rozer raises the point himself.
In every major league today, there probably is at least one gay player on every team, living a painful and phony life complete with wife and children, a player who can™t be himself because it would mean being ostracized by a small but vocal percentage of his teammates.
And I don™t think Ozzie Guillen would be one of the offenders. Look, he used a bad word, true, but word meanings change over the course of time.
I™ve been playing hockey since I was 5 years old, almost 40 years now. Not a game goes by without hearing that word ” I heard it earlier this week ” and it has been decades since it became a generic insult, used frequently and not intended to disparage gays.
But that doesn™t make it OK, says a gay friend, because by using it as a putdown it is by definition insulting and offensive to the gay community.
And if it™s not OK to offend blacks, Hispanics, Indians or Arabs with words most people would never dream of using, asks my friend, why is it still OK to use gay-bashing language?
Guillen doesn™t understand that concept today, and he won™t tomorrow, not because he™s Venezuelan or because of the language, but because he was a baseball player.
It is a part of baseball, and they can send 750 players to sensitivity training, and bad language and insults will remain a part of clubhouse life. Except they will be more careful around whom they say it.