My Ethical MLBoyfriend

I've been thinking a lot about something, and I wanted to put it out there before the 2019 baseball season begins.* It's been on my mind since soon after I launched the MLBoyfriend blog, but I hadn't really put my finger on it. Then, towards the end of last summer, Will Leitch's piece "It Might Be Impossible To Be An Ethical Sports Fan" helped clarify the issue.

"Being a sports fan means signing up for shady capitalist practices, engaging in ugly tribalism, and very often, cheering for many human beings who stand for the opposite of what you believe in every possible way. You might not always be acutely aware that you’re doing these things, but you are. To successfully remain a sports fan, I’d argue a certain emotional alchemy is required."

So the question for me as I think about this MLBoyfriend blog is: Should I be celebrating players who are great on the field but might, in fact, be garbage people?

Leitch uses the example of the Chicago Cubs picking up Daniel Murphy in a trade despite his publicly stated homophobic views--which was a very problematic move. I've actually been following the Murphy story since it first broke. From the beginning, I have tended to defer to Billy Bean's opinion of Murphy. Bean, who came out as gay after retiring from baseball, is MLB's Ambassador of Inclusion and provides "guidance and training related to efforts to support those in the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community". It was a training with Bean that kicked off the Murphy brouhaha. At the time, Bean issued an incredibly gracious response:

Billy Bean throws out the first pitch at
Minnesota Twins Pride Night 2018

"I appreciate that Daniel spoke his truth. I really do. I was visiting his team, and a reporter asked his opinion about me. He was brave to share his feelings, and it made me want to work harder and be a better example that someday might allow him to view things from my perspective, if only for just a moment. I respect him, and I want everyone to know that he was respectful of me. We have baseball in common, and for now, that might be the only thing. But it's a start."

Last year, Bean said the he and Murphy have become friends. I guess that's why I couldn't get too worked up about the Cubs decision to bring Murphy on board--or the Colorado Rockies signing him on for two years this winter. If the person who was the target of Murphy's initial comments isn't calling for him to be drummed out of baseball, who am I to? Also, I must confess that I did put Murphy on my fantasy baseball team for a short period a couple of years ago. He might be a homophobe, but he's a really good hitter.

That said, I would never pick Daniel Murphy to be my MLBoyfriend. Expressing anti-LGBTQ+ views to the press is clearly a bridge too far. But what should I do if homophobic tweets of a past MLBoyfriend surface? This is the problem I faced with Trae Turner. Two years after I named him my MLBoyfriend, some troubling social media posts he had made became public. I'm hoping it's not too hypocritical that I gave him a bit of a pass. I think there's a difference between statements a professional player made on the record and things a high school student says in what he, mistakenly, thought to be just a messages to friends. I also felt Turner's apology was sincere. Another disclosure: Trea Turner was my first pick in my fantasy draft last week. (Yes, that's twice that I turned a blind eye to homophobia in order to win in a pretend sports league.) Still, unless he shows through actions and not just words that he has evolved into a true LGBTQ+ ally, Turner is almost certainly a one-and-done as my MLBoyfriend.

Sean Doolittle, pitcher, LGBTQ+ ally, dreamboat

Turner was one of three players whose ugly past on social media was revealed over a short period last summer. It's no coincidence that as that controversy swirled around the MLB, I chose Sean Doolittle to be my MLBoyfriend. Doolittle had the best response to the issue of athletes' bigoted tweets that he shared, appropriately enough, on Twitter. He has also been a vocal and active supporter of the LGBTQ+ community throughout his career. Sean Doolittle is definitely on my radar for a repeat win of the MLBoyfriend title.

My concerns go beyond LGBTQ+ issues. I was saddened to learn that J.D. Martinez--who has appeared on MLBoyfriend multiple times--posted an anti-gun-control meme on Instagram, and then, when confronted about it, chose to double down. Worse yet, the extremely dubious "quote" implies that gun-safety advocates are like Nazis. So, that's really bad.

There is a precedent for me taking someone off the blog. Right after the 2016 election, a player gloated about Trump's victory with what could be interpreted as an antisemitic tweet. I was in no mood to put up with that shit, so I went back to the week he was my MLBoyfriend and simply replaced him with another player. The only evidence he was ever there is the web address for the post. I also completely deleted a post about another player after it was revealed he has a history of domestic abuse.

Why didn't I take J.D. Martinez off the blog after he expressed a view that is deeply offensive to me? I'm not sure. Part of it is laziness. It would have taken a lot more work than re-writing one post. Part of it is wondering if I'm punishing players for exercising their right to express political opinions that are opposed to mine. I'm sure many players have terrible politics but just keep them to themselves. Furthermore, Martinez's views were not widely reported when I wrote about him. The posts are accurate reflections of how I felt at the time--and isn't that what a blog is all about? So, I've decide to punt and go back a put this disclaimer in all the Martinez posts:

"I wrote this before J.D. Martinez posted something very problematic on social media that is in direct opposition to my values. He has a right to express political opinions, but words have consequences. In this case the consequence is that I no longer think he's hot--in fact, he's the opposite of hot. NRA propaganda is deal breaker for me."

I doubt anyone is going through my archives, but it will make me feel better.

I guess that puts me back where I started. What are the ethical trade-offs I'm willing to make to be not just a baseball fan but someone who puts his fandom out there for public consumption? I found an interesting response to Will Leitch's piece by Matt Bogdanow titled, "It Might Be Possible To Be An Ethical Sports Fan". Both Leitch and Bogdanow believe that sports fandom involves a bit of magical thinking regarding the relationship between players and fans.

"The deal we make with ourselves when we watch sports is that we will give outsize proportion to their importance, we will allow them to affect our emotions in dramatic ways even though no one involved has any personal connection to us at all, and we will, wittingly or no, finance activities and products and philosophies that are bad for the world as a whole." --Will Leitch 

"...We desperately want to believe that our rooting has some, albeit small, impact on the field. But if we accept that our feelings don’t actually affect the results, a whole new landscape of rooting possibilities emerges. Having a favorite team no longer needs to mean a blanket support of every member of that team. Watching sports becomes much like watching Game of Thrones: You can want good things to happen to your favorite characters (and vice versa), but that doesn’t mean it’ll happen." --Matt Bogdanow 

Bogdanow has found way to be a baseball fan that he feels right for him. His path is not a path for me, but it does show me that, if you're making conscious decisions, you can find your own way to ethical fandom.

I decided to keep this blog going for at least one more year. It may involve a little compromise and my choices might not always be perfect. Still, I think it's good that there's a little place on the internet where a gay man can post about Mike Trout and discuss both whether or not he's the GOAT and how frickin' hot he is.

Mike Trout at spring training.... *sigh*

Going forward, I will try to name more MLBoyfriends who reflect my values--players who support causes I believe in and express views that align with mine. I did it with Sean Doolittle and others, notably:

Adam Jones, MLBoyfried & hero

• Adam Jones for speaking out on racial politics in baseball in the midst of the NFL National Anthem protests.

Bruce Maxwell, MLBoyfriend & hero

• On that note, Bruce Maxwell, the first MLB player to take a knee, was a clear choice for my MLBoyfriend.

Anthony Rizzo, MLBoyfriend & hero

• Anthony Rizzo won his third MLBoyfriend title for going the extra mile for his alma mater, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, in the wake of the tragic shooting there and his support of gun safety laws. Rizzo is just the best.

Still, that's only four values-based picks in the three years of MLBoyfriends. I can do better. Don't worry, I'll still make sentimental picks and a smoking hot player will always be a contender. However, I'll do my due diligence and try to weed out the problematic and find the heroes off the field.

It's now up to the boys of summer to catch my eye, win my heart and become one of my 2019 MLBoyfriends. Play ball!

*I know the MLB season has already officially started. However, I find it hard to believe anyone buy die-hard Oakland A's and Seattle Mariners fans were paying attention to the "Season Opener" in Japan.