‘Straight up Texas’ is the Texas Rangers’ Pride month slogan, plus a batter channels a gay sports icon

Welcome back to Talkin’ Gaysball where this ain’t Texas, ain’t no hold ‘em. Because we can actually type the phrase “Happy Pride.”

It’s the most fabulous time of the year! To commemorate it, we’ve seen several MLB teams reach out to our community on the internet.

Some like the Royals share a message of inclusion to ring in their Pride Night:

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Others like the Mariners tout their community efforts:

Those are all well and good. But now it’s time to type what turn out to be the five most regrettable words in the baseball universe during this particular month.

And then there’s the Rangers:

The Rangers slogan for Pride Month is “Straight Up Texas.” Yikes. If an Outsports story had sound, here is where it would play “The Price is Right” failure horn.

Now that they’ve finally figured out October, it appears the Rangers decided to move all of their facepalms to June. Timing wise, this is the marketing equivalent of saying, “You know what, let’s just play the most crucial ninth inning in franchise history with a DH in right field!”

To be fair, they have a built-in excuse: “Straight Up Texas” was the team’s hashtag from 2023 and they could argue that they picked it as a throwback. 

However, given their history with LGBTQ fans, I have the feeling that we’re days away from uncovering previous marketing slogans like “The 1992 Texas Rangers: It’s Adam and Eve, Not Adam and Steve!”

As The Athletic’s Levi Weaver references in his tweet, the Rangers’ historic opposition to Pride makes this slogan eyebrow-raising. Considering that they’ve also neglected mentioning LGBTQ kids in Spirit Day posts, it certainly doesn’t come as a surprise.

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Perhaps my favorite detail in all of this is that even if there was malicious intent behind the Rangers posting “Straight Up Texas,” they’ve chosen to push back against Pride by referencing that noted icon of masculine straight men: Paula Abdul.

You can practically hear Rangers ownership declaring, “LGBTQ Pride is a sin against relationships the way God intended: between one woman and one animated cat.”

From past conversations with sources, I know that there are several people working for the Rangers who want to see them finally host a Pride event and hate that their team is associated with stuff like this.

Unfortunately, this kind of thing just keeps happening. So if they’re going to keep antagonizing our community — especially during Pride Month — I have a suggestion:

If the Rangers want to be the Chick-fil-A of baseball, go all the way. Close Globe Life Field on the Sabbath and forfeit every Sunday.

After all, most of their on-field history has indicated that it’s God’s will for the Rangers to finish in fourth place.

Live! Tauch! POSE!

In what has become one of baseball’s best annual traditions, Cubs right fielder Mike Tauchman hit a walk-off home run on Wednesday to beat the White Sox in the annual crosstown series.

He later told the Chicago media, “I don’t know if I’ve ever hit a walk-off homer. I didn’t really know what to do.”

For the record, here is what Tauchman did to celebrate:

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A post shared by cubs (@cubs)

If that pose looks familiar to you, it should.

We stan a Cubs hero who instinctively stans a queen.

MLB Thirst Trap of the Week

Reds fireballer Hunter Greene is one of the most intimidating pitchers in the game, routinely breaking 100 MPH with his fastball.

He’s also something of a baseball renaissance man. Away from the diamond, Greene is an avid painter and knows how to play the violin.

On top of all that, Greene occasionally lights up the radar gun when you set it to “adorbs,” as shown when he introduced the media to his French bulldog, Ross, during a press conference last week.

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A post shared by Hunter Greene (@therealhuntergreene)

Guys, this is Outsports. You can’t swipe right on that pic. Sorry.

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