Baseball team cancels its Pride Game over jerseys. The decision is worse than the Giants’.
A Minor league baseball team decided canceling their Pride Game would be more inclusive than hosting it in regular jerseys. Huh?
Mark
Has everyone lost their minds?
The York Revolution — a minor league baseball team in Pennsylvania — has announced it’s canceled its entire Pride Match because some of the players refused to wear a Pride jersey the team designated for the match.
So let’s get this “straight.”
Because some of the players on the team didn’t want to wear a Pride rainbow jersey — I’ll get to this in a moment — the team thought the best option was to cancel the entire Pride Game instead of having the players wear regular game jerseys?
The club said it will still have a “Pride Night” at the ballpark… there just won’t be any baseball game.
Say what?
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“Out of respect for the Pride Community and the York community as a whole, the York Revolution has decided that the game on Thursday, June 18, will be forfeited and that Pride Night will continue on as the feature element of the evening at WellSpan Park,” the York Revolution wrote in an announcement.
“We feel that this is the best way to stay consistent with our long-standing partnerships with the Rainbow Rose Center, JLS Automation and the long list of allies that have always been key partners of the York Revolution’s success in York, Pennsylvania.”
Canceling a Pride Game is now more inclusive than hosting one?
So instead of finding a way to hold the match, team leaders thought the best way to help the LGBTQ community was to cancel the match and, in the eyes of many people who will see this, blame it on the LGBTQ community and forcing players to wear some Pride jerseys?
The Revolution get an automatic “loss” because of Pride jerseys. Yeah, fans must love that.
Team leaders could have let some players wear the jersey and some players not wear the jersey. Yes, in this case it would have made some headlines. Some players would have been singled out. But as far as I’m concerned, many of the players choosing to wear the Pride jersey shows progress.
The smartest option: The team could have held the Pride Game, but simply had all the players wear a regular team jersey. If the majority of the players declined to wear the jersey, fine. Just have no one wear it.
Even if the club had previously advertised that the players would wear the jerseys with rainbow sleeves, the game would have gone on. And no one would be blaming the LGBTQ community for trying to “force” the players to wear the Pride rainbow.
Major League Baseball teams are currently not allowed to wear Pride jerseys, and only two clubs — Dodgers and Giants — can wear Pride caps, from what Outsports can tell. They’re the only two that do it.
No one is yelling to have a Pride rainbow forced onto a player, even for a Pride Game. Unfortunately, the Revolution’s statement says they tried to force players to wear it.
Ugh.
With the players wearing normal game jerseys, the LGBTQ community, supporters and fans could still come to the game, wave rainbow flags, celebrate, have a good time, raise some money for the community.
Instead, the York Revolution felt the best plan of action was to do the one thing that would whack the hornets nest of anti-gay politicians and media pundits, make it clear the club was trying to force players to wear the Pride rainbow, cancel the entire match, and let mayhem ensue.
Again, to be clear: The blame for this in much of the media and people who don’t like the LGBTQ community won’t be directed at the team, it will be placed squarely at the foot of every gay, lesbian, bi and trans person.
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I’m not sure if the York Revolution based their decision on feedback from local LGBTQ people and organizations. Maybe they did.
From my perspective, having worked for LGBTQ inclusion in sports for over 26 years, whatever led them to choose to cancel the match — instead of, as one option, holding the match and having players all wear a regular match jersey — was bad advice.
In the public forum, the LGBTQ community will now pay the price.
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