This is definitely a first for MLBoyfriend: I have selected a player who did not actually play at all last week. Liam Hendriks has been on the 15-day IL. So why is he my choice for the week? Well, some news broke about him. Here's another first for the blog, I'm using People as a source. This is the headline that caught my eye: MLB Pitcher and LGBTQ Ally Made Liam Hendriks Made Sure White Sox Had a Pride Night Before Joining the Team.
Hendriks raised the Pride Flag at the White Sox ballpark before last year's Pride Night and will do so again this year. He says of his allyship:
“For me, it’s just being a decent human being. You are going to have people you just don’t get along with purely based on personality, but race, sexual orientation or anything like that should never come into it. They should never be part of the equation of why you have a disdain for somebody, and that’s something that I think the more people talk about, hopefully it gets more normalized.”
In my research on Hendriks (a.k.a. Googling "Liam Hendriks"), I discovered that he publicly stood up for his teammate Tim Anderson in the wake of the Josh Donaldson incident. Long story short: A month ago, Donald made comments to Anderson that were at best disrespectful and some would say racist on the field. Donaldson was fined and suspended, but the whole thing has remained in the news because he appealed the suspension. Donaldson has been trying to rehabilitate his image with some lame explanations for his behavior. Hendriks called Donaldson's excuse, and I'm quoting here: COMPLETE BULLSHIT.
Another aspect of my "research" for these posts is checking out the player's Instagram account. Hendriks has a good one. Two posts stood out to me. First, this one in which he participates in an effort to raise awareness of gun violence:
Then, there was Hendriks' latest Instagram post from a White Sox event at Chicago's Field Museum. Sure, he's super cute in the pic, but his wife, Kristi, is clearly the star. Every gay at the party wants to hang out with that girl.
Congratulation, Liam Hendriks! You are my MLBoyfriend of the week. Quite an achievement considering you didn't spend one minute of the week on the field.
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