Gay Texas Rangers fans get some rare good news with the signing of ally Mark Canha

Welcome back to Talkin’ Gaysball where we hope we finally might have an excuse to write a future column headlined ‘The Best Little Clubhouse in Texas…’

The opening of Spring Training brings back so many of the sensory experiences that remind us of why we love baseball.

There’s the thunderous crack of the bat. The echoing pop of the catcher’s mitt. And, of course, the classic song synonymous with our national pastime…

“You Need to Calm Down” by Taylor Swift.

OK, technically, that only applies if you’re veteran utilityman and LGBTQ ally Mark Canha. 

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Swift has one of the songs on Canha’s annual Pride Night walk-up music playlist, usually sharing space with Gaga, Whitney and Madonna. It’s one of several ways that Canha has reached out to LGBTQ fans to make them feel welcome at the ballpark throughout his career.

Which is what makes the next stop on his big league journey so intriguing. Because Canha just signed a minor league deal with the Texas Rangers.

Yes, the same Rangers who remain the lone MLB team to refuse to host a Pride Night. 

Every spring has become an absurd game to see what promotions the Rangers are celebrating in lieu of Pride. This season, for example, they’re holding a fake blood-splattered Nolan Ryan jersey giveaway. 

It genuinely looks like Texas just agreed to a five year contract with Leatherface. The only way we’d see a Rangers Pride jersey in 2026 would be if Nolan bled rainbows.

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So with that in mind, every LGBTQ fan in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex should be trying to manifest one last burst of baseball karma for Canha so that he can make the big club.

If he did earn a spot on the 26 man roster, Canha would immediately become one of the most vocal LGBTQ supporters in Rangers history — even if he doesn’t say a word during his tenure in Globe Life Field.

Throughout his career, he’s been one of the most welcoming voices in baseball. Going back to his start with Oakland, Canha was always willing to support Pride on social media, posting a photo of himself warming up with an A’s rainbow fanny pack in 2019 with the message “Hope everyone is having a great Pride weekend! I know I am!”

Then during his next stop with the Mets, Canha stepped up his game. He naturally continued posting “Happy Pride Month” messages on his Instagram story while rocking whimsical rainbow banana t-shirts with the message “We’re all the same inside.”

But he also became a public face of the Mets LGBTQ outreach, welcoming fans to Pride Night on the team’s TikTok and Youtube channels.

Canha also repeatedly spoke out on LGBTQ issues in his sport. When Anderson Comás came out on Instagram in 2023, Canha responded to his post with an exuberant “Yes!” and a series of rainbow heart emojis.

During the previous season when five Tampa Bay Rays pitchers ripped Pride logos off their jerseys, Canha and SNY reporter Andy Martino engaged in a deep and introspective conversation about LGBTQ allyship in MLB that also touched on privilege, activism, and social media echo chambers.

“It’s really hard for me to understand how you can say you’re not an LGBTQ+ ally, just in the same way you can say you’re not a feminist if you know what the definition of a feminist is. How can you say you’re not a feminist?” Canha mused.

“There is no reason to make anybody feel like they’re less than, or that they’re marginalized—especially the people who statistically are marginalized in this country,” he added.

Now, this is not to say that Rangers fans can expect the Globe Life Field clubhouse to instantly turn into the comments section of The Advocate. 

For one thing, Canha still has to make the team. And even if he does, he’s a 37 year old in the journeyman phase of his career trying to prove himself to a new club after a -1.0 Wins Above Replacement season. As a survival mechanism, those guys try to fly under the radar in an effort to keep playing for as long as they can.

But if Canha makes the team, he will still give LGBTQ Rangers fans a rare opportunity where they can point to someone in their team’s uniform and know with certainty that he is on their side and he has their backs.

Considering all the negative messages they’ve had to endure from the most anti-Pride team in baseball, Canha would give them someone to rally around and celebrate.

It’s not going make the Rangers suddenly realize the error of their ways and break out rainbow lone star flags. 

But it would be a genuine positive development for Texas LGBTQ baseball. Those fans deserve all the positivity they can get.

They also deserve at least one player who publicly identifies as a Swiftie.

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