Red Sox pitcher hugging his opponent is everything baseball should be
Payton Tolle's hugging a baserunner while tagging him out is infinitely more enjoyable than any onfield collision or brawl.
Mark
Welcome back to Talkin’ Gaysball where our favorite MLB highlights are the ones that play as Etta belts “At Last…”
Another instance of overwhelming straight maleness broke out in baseball last week.
You’ve seen it dozens of times before. During Wednesday night’s game, White Sox provocateur Sam Antonacci, perhaps upset that he’s only been able to grow a total of 12 mustache hairs by age 23, threw an elbow into Pirates second baseman Brandon Lowe’s hip while trying to break up a double play.
Lowe yelled. Antonacci yelled back. And both benches rushed onto the field as if every straight bro on the roster was just informed there was only one bottle of Axe Body Spray left in the entire central time zone and it was located at second base.
Yawn.
Get off the sidelines and into the game
Our weekly playbook is packed with everything from locker room chatter to pressing LGBTQ sports issues.
Subscribe to our Newsletter today
It doesn’t have to be like this. There is, in fact, another way — and that was illustrated just a couple of weeks ago by Red Sox pitcher and all around purveyor of whimsy Payton Tolle.
Helping lead the Sox’ astonishing mid-season charge into playoff relevance, Tolle has become beloved in Boston for an exuberant mound presence more animated than “Coyote v. Acme.”
As he demonstrated when he cheekily shaved “USA” into his chest hair to hype up the World Baseball Classic, he’s also is a walking billboard for googling “When is Ptown Bear Week?”
(Not for nothing but in that single clip, Tolle also had more fun than every player on Team USA combined.)
Like Mariners first baseman Josh Naylor, Tolle is one of modern baseball’s best examples of a likable big goof.
Based on his reaction after confronting a baserunner two weeks ago, he might soon earn a promotion to affable galoot.
Related
Let’s applaud the Cardinals and Rockies, who used caps to protest an umpire’s prejudice
The two teams’ support of a rookie from a marginalized community stood in stark contrast to the Giants Pride cap catastrophe.Dolly Parton brought her joy to baseball when she took batting practice at Yankee Stadium
From a segment with the Steinbrenner Yankees to Joey Votto walking up to ‘Jolene,’ Dolly made baseball better.
In a game against Seattle, Tolle induced a chopper back to the mound from Mariners DH Dominic Canzone.
After gloving the ball, the mountainous hurler proceeded to charge head-on into Canzone’s baserunning lane in order to tag him out. For a second, Canzone had to be wondering what this 6-foot-6, 250 pound behemoth of eccentricity had in mind.
Was it going to turn into an old school baseball confrontation a la Antonacci and Lowe? The game’s outdated macho unwritten rules would seem to dictate such a thing.
But instead, Tolle slowed to a stop, opened up his tree trunk arms, and gave Canzone what could only be described as the beariest of bear hugs.
Immediately, the Fenway Park crowd erupted.
In return, Canzone gave Tolle a one-armed hug with a look that was half confusion/half profound relief. Their spontaneous reaction elevated a run of the mill late summer game into a moment that no one who was there would forget.
As someone who routinely tells skittish straight friends to normalize hugs among men, give me that moment of surprisingly genuine affection over benches clearing any day of the week.
“It just kind of happened,” Tolle recounted after the game, “I was right there in front of him, and I was like, ‘Bring it in for the big one.’”
Most of us have wasted our lives on Grindr waiting to hear a man say those exact words. Turns out all we had to do was tap a ground ball.
And if the Red Sox want to make next year’s Pride Night even more special, all they need to do is print a shirt for the big lefty with one simple phrase: Free pitcher hugs.
Subscribe to the Outsports newsletter to keep up with your favorite out athletes, inspiring LGBTQ sports stories, and more.
