For the first time in the short life span of the Pix, The Pix is shifting out of the 3rd person into the 1st. While it's fun to write as an alter ego, I want whatever I end up writing here to be my own words. For those out there who know the Pix personally, you may be wondering what the difference is. I'm not sure, let's just see where this goes......
So the reason for the sudden change of tone is this space is the column by Boston Herald writer Steve Buckley yesterday announcing to the world that he is gay. For most of us in the year 2011, this is not a big deal. But in the world of professional sports and professional sports media, this is a very big deal. Buckley is by no means the first openly gay writer and commentator in America, but i can only think of one or two others off the top of my head. Men's professional sports is a hyper macho culture where violence is omni present and where basically the worst thing you could be was gay. A fag. The social stigma is so strong in the sports world that 2 out of the last three sports writers in America who came out ended up killing themselves within year.
What strikes me as really ironic is that sports in America, other than the military, was the institution more than any other that was at the forefront off the civil rights movement. The football and baseball fields were the first places many white Americans first saw black men. At all. There's a reason that Major League Baseball consider's #42, Jackie Robinson's number, as sacred. Robinson broke the baseball color barrier and has served since that time as the racially metaphorical bridge that represents America's past and it's present. Do you know what year that was? It was 1947. We all know that Robinson's feat didn't transform the country right away. Inter racial marriage wasn't portrayed on television until the 70's with "The Jeffersons". But it was a huge start. And Jackie Robinson is considered an American hero. The fact that no gay male athlete in a major professional sport has chosen to break the "sexual preference" barrier by now, I think, says a lot about our society. And what it says isn't good.
I think a major male athlete is going to come out within the next 24 months. It will be very interesting to see how that plays out, When Magic announced back in 1991 that he was HIV positive, he was forced to retire. When he came back for the All Star game there was lots of talk about certain players boycotting the game. Even Isiah Thomas stopped kissing him at half court before tip off. But eventually, Magic was welcomed back into the league again. Magic says he contracted the disease from unprotected heterosexual behavior, so the analogy isn't perfect, but it's not too far off. That was 20 years ago. Before "Will and Grace". Before "Modern Family". Before the Bravo network.
So back to Steve Buckley. Kind of. The reason his story resonated with me is because it reminded me of the only gay person who was ever in my life and how much I regret never getting the opportunity to tell him I loved him for who he was. He was my uncle Dennis who died very suddenly in England when I was a freshman at Davidson College in 1985. I remember writing him the week I heard he was ill. I never heard back. I'm afraid to say I don't think he even got my letter in time. I don't remember exactly what I wrote. I just wish I had been a little bit older and a little bit more knowledgeable about the world at the time and that we could have had "the gay talk". Maybe I'm having it now. With myself. Thinking of my uncle Dennis. Thanking Steve Buckley.
The Pix......
Chiefs +3 vs Ravens
Saints -10 at Seahawks
Colts -2.5 over Jets
GB +2.5 at Philly
