This straight fan has attended about 300 Giants games. Then he wrote Buster Posey this letter.
This straight SF Giants fan has attended about 300 games. He questioned Buster Posey and the team's values in San Francisco.
Mark
This is part of Outsports’ series of “Dear Giants” letters written by San Francisco Giants fans and sent to the team after their mishandling of this season’s Pride Night, with Bible verses written on Pride caps by three players intending to send an anti-gay message during Pride Night.
Mike Dahlquist may live in Oakland, where the A’s called home for decades, but he’s been one of many San Francisco Giants fans in the larger Bay Area, attending over 100 home games in the last decade and about 300 games in his life.
Yet like so many other fans — gay, straight and otherwise — he has been extremely disappointed his favorite team’s failed response to the demonstration three anti-gay players were allowed to showcase on this year’s Pride Night.
Dahlquist wrote the team a letter, addressed directly to Buster Posey, even before the team’s Director of Baseball Operations held the now-infamous press conference that poured gasoline on the fire.
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“Wearing your own number on Jackie Robinson Day instead of #42 is not an option,” Dahlquist told Outsports, “and I don’t think eschewing or defacing the Pride hat with a homophobic dog whistle should be either,”
It’s been weeks since he wrote this letter, with no response for the team.
Dear Giants,
I wanted to write to you to tell you how disappointed I was to see the pitching staff’s response on Friday to Pride Night.
These players took what was supposed to be a celebration of a group that makes up a huge part of this city and fan base and turned it into a protest.
And no, I don’t for a second buy the explanation “there’s no hate at all,” and I hope you don’t believe your fans are dumb enough to not see right through that either.
Could you imagine the response to a group of players defacing the military camo hat on Memorial Day?
Or a player refusing to wear the Fiesta Gigantes jersey on a Saturday night and taking the field in the regular home uniform instead, and then saying “I don’t morally support it”?
You and I both know the fallout would be severe.
And the fact that the response from the team here was to shrug your collective shoulders and say everyone’s entitled to their own beliefs only speaks to the disconnect between the ownership/management and the great city you represent, and to the fact that the LGBTQ community is still widely ostracized.
Inclusion is part of what makes San Francisco great. The tradition of Pride is part of what makes San Francisco great.
Before this weekend, I would have said the Giants (who I’ll remind you held the first Pride Night in baseball — when you were on the team) are part of what makes San Francisco great.
Now I’m not so sure.
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“Never meet your heroes,” as the saying goes.
‘m under no illusion that all ballplayers are as enlightened as Rod Beck, Jeremy Affeldt, or your good friend Hunter Pence.
But I sincerely hope that in addition to not being very good pitchers, Landen Roupp, JT Brubaker, Sam Hentges, and Ryan Walker don’t represent the values of the organization.
I am confident that they do not represent the beliefs of the city that has embraced this team for the last 69 seasons. Now would be a good time to remind your fans who the Giants really are — your silence to date speaks volumes.
Sincerely,
Mike Dahlquist
If you are a longtime San Francisco Giants fan and sent a letter to the team expressing thoughts about their Pride Night debacle, DM us on social media or email us at team@outsports.com
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