Gays and Jays to Celebrate Pride Night

Globe and Mail ^ | June 23, 2005 | Jill Mahoney

[Loyalist]

gay chorus will sing the national anthems. The host of a same-sex wedding television show will throw the first pitch. And as rainbow flags flutter, fruit mascots will entertain the crowd during the seventh-inning stretch.

When the Blue Jays play host to the Baltimore Orioles tonight, the Toronto team will hold Pride Night, a themed game designed to attract gays and lesbians during the city's Pride Week.

"We have a responsibility to be representative of our community and to reach out to segments of our community and overall just be an inclusive organization," said Rob Godfrey, the Blue Jays senior vice-president of communications.

Last year, the Jays became the first -- and remain the only -- professional sports franchise to stage such an event in Canada. A handful of American Major League Baseball teams and a couple of National Basketball Association organizations also hold gay days.

Macho sports organizations and the homosexual community make for unlikely partners. While there are currently no openly gay Major League Baseball players -- or professional basketball, hockey or football, for that matter -- observers say the move helps to erode homophobia. (Gay players have come out of the closet after retiring.)

"There's a lot to do but I really think that we've turned the corner on the days five or so years ago when someone would say, 'Oh no, a gay guy could never come out in sports.' I think that's an old opinion. I think things are beginning to change," said Pat Griffin, author, academic and director of It Takes a Team!, an educational campaign on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered issues in sports.

Five Boston Red Sox players were recently made over by Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, the popular television show where five gay men work their magic on needy heterosexuals.However, there is still intolerance in locker rooms. Red Sox pitcher Mike Timlin said he would not have participated in the Queer Eye makeover, telling a newspaper, "I don't believe in how some people live."

Torontonian Mark Kari, who runs http://www.gaybaseballdays.com, said America's favourite pastime is a hotbed of rumours about players' sexual orientation.

"You do hear a lot more of it than you do about any other sport. I'm not really sure why that is," said Mr. Kari, who played a role in proposing Pride Night to the Jays.

While American baseball organizations have been holding gay days for several years, the Jays, which are the only Canadian MLB team, were one of the first to take a key role in organizing and promoting such an event. In other cities, Mr. Kari said, gay communities do the work with little help from teams.

This year, the Jays have developed two ads. One is modelled after the movie Men in Black and says: "Men with bats. They wield them with pride." The other, featuring a woman with blue hair and another with a Jays tattoo on her face, says: "When Harriet Met Sally."

Such initiatives, of course, make good business sense while honing a team's image. Leon Mar, a spokesman for Pride Toronto, noted several corporations are sponsoring this week's celebration, which is among the largest in the world.

And so, tonight, before the 7:07 game time, several hundred gays and lesbians will take field-level seats on the first-base side of the Rogers Centre, some sporting Jays garb and carrying rainbow flags. (Pride Toronto, which will receive a share of the reduced ticket prices, asked for seats together to foster camaraderie.)

Among the fans will be Josh Vandezande, a 29-year-old public servant whose softball team will attend en masse. They will listen to Forte -- the Toronto Men's Chorus sing the anthems; watch Scott Thompson, former Kids in the Hall star and host of My Fabulous Gay Wedding, throw the first pitch; and be entertained by fruit-costumed members of the Lesbian & Gay Community Appeal Foundation.

"It is kind of exciting to go to this one and look around and see lots of other people that identify as being gay and are at this place where normally maybe they would feel a little bit less comfortable being out about it," Mr. Vandezande said.

"It'll probably be one of the loudest games that they have since nobody's as loud as a group of gay men. I mean, why wouldn't you want them in your fan base?"

[Loyalist]

I'm disgusted, but not surprised. The Jays have sucked on the field for years.

[Rutles4Ever]

I'm going to be ill.

[TexasCajun]

Wonder who will be pitching and who will be catching?

[GianniV]

I took my 5-year-old nephew to the Chicago Cubs' game last and the Chicago Gay Men's Chorus sang the National Anthem. What a sick joke. Injecting that lifestyle on kids at a ball game.

Men sodomizing each other should NEVER be celebrated.

[thoughtomator]

Just try to imagine a heterosexual counterpart to this and the outraged cries from the militant homosexuals and their socialist allies - and the prosecutions, for that matter - that would result.

[skip_intro]

How drunk do you have to get before you can spew out a load like this:

We have a responsibility to be representative of our community and to reach out to segments of our community and overall just be an inclusive organization," said Rob Godfrey

[kharaku]

This could totally redefine "They're getting it in the can out there!".

[ElTianti]

You know, most homos don’t even like Baseball. Why can’t they leave those of us that do alone? You don’t see me going to musicals and fashion shows?

[Reactionary]

I hope aliens don't attack and cause everyone's a$$ to explode.

But that's just me.

[ikka]

And as rainbow flags flutter, fruit mascots will entertain

FRUITY FRUIT FRUIT!

Do the Jays have any switch-hitters among them I wonder? Maybe some American football players could show up and they could play a nice intramural game of "smear the queer".

[Cyber Ninja]

I double checked. This is not from Scrappleface. What gives? I'm confused.

[N3WBI3]

My grandfather was a Jays fan (lived in Canada), I have always had a soft spot for them because he and I sat in his hospice room watching them win the world series (their first series). After he died ws was a real jays fan for a few years and then I drifted back to my favorite team as a kid, the bo-sox.

to see this from the jays saddens, but not surprises me..

[new cruelty]

Just imagine the 7th inning stretch.

[tractorman]

Thank God the Packers play in Green Bay and not Canaduh!

[Luddite Patent Counsel]

I'm disgusted, but not surprised. The Jays have sucked on the field for years.

Maybe so, but you've got to give them credit for their ability to come from behind. They may blow a few games, but they never choke.

[RichInOC]

You'd think the Jays would have learned after the sky-suite fiasco that baseball and sex don't mix too well.

[new cruelty]

lol. lol... hehe... heh.. heheheheh.. muhwahahahahahahaha!

[catpuppy]

good grief ...

[Ron in Acreage]

You others of like minds should have stormed the box office and demanded your money back. If I were you I would mail my stubs back with a letter stating your outrage and demand a refund. Time to boycott until they put a stop to this immoral promotion of a sick and diseased ridden lifestyle.