March 7, 2006

• Once when I was 12, Mark and our friends were wrestling around
  pretending were in the WWF. Everybody chose to be a wrestler, somebody
  chose Hulk Hogan, somebody else Macho Man except for me. As always I
  was a huge baseball fan and I chose to be Kirby Puckett. I was
  saddened today to hear that he had died, he has always been in my top
  10, maybe even top 5 of favorite players of all time. I can still
  remember being on the edge of my seat when I was 16 and watching game 6
  of the '91 World Series and how he basically won that game all his own.
  In recent years, he had become quite the tragic figure, some of which
  was of his own doing. It appears that he was quite a different person
  once he was forced to retire because of the glaucoma he got as the
  result of being hit in the eye with a pitch. I know he had had some
  personal problems in recent years and I can not forget that,  I
  will just choose to remember him as the happy go lucky fun player I
  loved to watch growing up.

  Speaking of sports, I saw a survey in Sports Illustrated in which they
  asked players in the 4 major sports if they would accept an openly gay
  teammate, and I was shocked by the results. 79.9% of NHL players, 61.5%
  of MLB, 59.6 of NBA and 56.9% of NFL players say they WOULD welcome an
  openly gay teammate. I was blown away by this, sports for YEARS has
  always been very homophobic and anti-gay (as I wrote in my Dec 1, 2005
  post, go back and read it. NOW!!!!) so I just assumed that players
  would not be very open, but I guess things have changed. As tough as
  the Christian Conservatives are trying to make it for gays, we are
  slowly but surely gaining acceptance and its in the places you would
  lease expect it. Of course, it is just a survey, who knows how players
  would actually react, but this is good sign.

  Speaking of accepting, I got in a conversation today with the Christian
  from work about gays. He once again mentioned that he does not approve
  of gays. Of course, he doesn't know I'm gay, which is funny because he
  really wants us to become good friends and we do have a lot in common.
  Yet, I keep him at an arm's length because of his views on gays. We
  could be good friends if he wasn't like this, but I don't need him. I
  told him today that his thoughts on gays were just as bad as him being
  racist and gays can not help who they are, it was not a choice. He said
  that he doesn't agree with that. I asked him if he chose to be straight
  and he said that he thinks for some people, being gay is a choice and
  for others it isn't. I asked him what he would do if one of his kids
  (he has a 7 year old son and a 2 year old daughter) turned out to be
  gay and he said they would not be welcomed in his house. Well, that
  right there almost ensures that I will not go back to his house, at
  least not until I am out to him.

  • 12:05 am
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