Met Pride

[G-Fafif]

Nice report from the Citi Field stands on what it was like to have Pride Night speak to you.

It's a night that, for Mets teams prior, and even other teams this year, was lip service, a way to appease a certain section of the fan base but something that is more marketing than actual outreach and engagement with the LGBTQ+ community. But this year, it felt different. I went to Pride Night last year, as well, and while I thought they did a pretty good job last year, this year felt above and beyond. It felt celebratory and truly heartfelt, not just rainbow capitalism but an actual genuine attempt at connection with a community that has been ostracized by baseball many times before, and even by the Mets themselves. And while I can practically feel some people rolling their eyes at this—“oh, this sucker FELL for it?”—of course I realize this is good public relations and an easy win. But between the sale of Pride gear sending the proceeds to the Amazin' Mets Foundation, and the full embrace by the players when they very easily could've just said the bare minimum (or even less than the bare minimum), the players and personnel made it clear that they do actually care.

https://www.amazinavenue.com/2022/6/18/23173585/mets-pride-night-mark-canha-taijuan-walker-daniel-murphy-giants-dodgers-rays-editorialhttps://www.amazinavenue.com/2022/6/18/23173585/mets-pride-night-mark-canha-taijuan-walker-daniel-murphy-giants-dodgers-rays-editorial

[seawolf17]

https://twitter.com/oliviapipia/status/1537939514861113346

This made me a Taijuan Walker fan for life.

[Edgy MD]

The reign of King Shit Only was brief but storied.

[G-Fafif]

Mark Canha, ally.

“Well, baseball is an extreme example of a sample group,” Canha said. “It's a very different place from anywhere else. You have people from different places, geographically and culturally, but it's also a similar age group, demographic and a similar education-level demographic. There are a lot of factors that make a baseball locker room what it is. It's a pretty small sample of America, so I don't know if you can gauge the temperature of the country based on what's going on in a baseball clubhouse. “Coming from where I came from in the Bay Area, and in particular Cal-Berkeley, where I went to school, the professional baseball locker room was a culture shock. It is so much different from what I was used to, and it was a wake-up call. [Where I came from], you would be in the minority if you weren't an ally to the LGBTQ+ community. So I was working under the assumption that young people in their 20s and 30s are all on that side. And then you get here and you quickly realize, ‘Oh, okay, that's not the case.' “And it's athletes, too. You have masculinity, testosterone, whatever. The Rays situation doesn't really surprise me. It is what it is. The right way to approach it isn't calling anybody out, because that's where we are right now. That's like the thing to do, calling everybody out. Twitter slamming is what's fun for everybody to do, and easy for everybody to do, so I think that's the wrong way to go about it.”

https://sny.tv/articles/mets-mark-canha-talks-pride-night-2022https://sny.tv/articles/mets-mark-canha-talks-pride-night-2022

[seawolf17]

I thought that was a really insightful interview, and I really enjoyed it. I'm definitely a Canha fan now.



It's unsurprising that clubhouses are bastions of right-wing bullshit, honestly, for the reasons he notes. But it's interesting to see it called out a bit, and at the same time, it's really interesting to see guys like Canha who are thriving in that ecosystem and doing what they can.



These pride nights really do matter so much to folks like me.

[Edgy MD]

I tend to think it means more when it's not a league-wide or team-wide mandate.



If everybody's told to wear a symbol — a flag or a camo top or a 42 or whatever — and everybody does it, it doesn't feel very authentic. They shrug and say, "Whatever" and they put on the uniform that's been hung in their locker.



When six player elect not to wear a rainbow, that means 20 players actively did. They didn't just shrug, but made a decision about what side of a dividing line they were on. That impresses me more, and I think the six actually ended up doing the pride movement a favor, inadvertent though it might have been.

[Ceetar]

As I said on the https://www.barleyprose.com/beer/mets-on-tap-episode-51-the-all-star-voting-episode/Mets On Tap podcast. It's one thing to not put on the uniform with your teammates, it's another to ACTIVELY remove a patch.



And Canha and Walker are the flip side. One thing to go along with MLB marketing, another great step to buy everyone in sight a Mets Pride shirt.