No active Major League Baseball player has ever come out of the closet. The alphabet mafia is hoping for that day, but for now, LGBTQABCD folks can only get excited when obscure minor leaguer announce that he's homosexual while playing in the bus leagues or somebody comes out after he's given up baseball.
The alphabet crowd was crowing over the weekend when Anderson Comas, a pitcher somewhere in the depths of the Chicago White Sox organization announced he digs guys.
The Chisox announced on Twitter, “We are all so proud of you, Anderson!” Oddly enough, the Sox post also included the name of singer Lady Gaga and the name of her song “Born This Way.” Whatever.
Comas, 23, pitched last season for the Kannapolis, N.C. Cannon Ballers, a Class A affiliate of the White Sox. He was called to the mound just 11 times and recorded an awful 6.35 earned run average. His unearned pride average is now soaring though.
White Sox assistant general manager/player development Chris Getz tweeted the team is “proud” of Anderson, who told the club last year he’s queer. That ploy may have been his best option not to get released for his awful pitching performances. Getz commented:
“And I was very pleased that he was comfortable sharing with us in player development. I also was happy at the reaction across the organization, which as you would expect was to support, help and congratulate a teammate. With his social media post today, we are so proud of Anderson and that he is comfortable sharing such an important personal part of his life so openly.”
Heterosexual players are never congratulated or celebrated for helping to raise the next generation of human beings.
Comas took an adversarial approach from the get-go in an Instagram message declaring his sexual identity. “If you’re homophobic this post may not (be) for you….so you can see we all matter and we all are the same…
“I’m doing this cause I wanna be an inspiration for those like me out there fitting for their dreams, please don’t listen to those stupid things that people say about us, fight for your dreams, believe in yourself and go for it.”
Then Comas boasted about himself and his pride:
“I’m also a human with a great soul, I’m respectful, I’m a lover, I love my family and friends and that’s what really matters, I enjoy my work a lot, being a professional baseball player is the best thing that happened to me so I just wanna say something to those people that says that gay people can not be someone in this life, well look at me I’m Gay and I’m a professional athlete so that didn’t stopped (sic) me to make my dreams come true.”
The Dominican is the first minor league baseball player to come out since pitcher Solomon Bates did so -- after the San Francisco Giants organization released him last year. Another former minor leaguer was David Denson, of the Milwaukee organization, in 2015. Sean Conroy pitched for the minor league Sonoma, Calif. Stompers a few years ago, and the lineup card from that game is – ridiculously – on display in the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y.
That’s right: an LBGTQABCD minor leaguer has an artifact in the Hall, but Shoeless Joe Jackson, the fourth-greatest hitter in baseball history, is not represented there because he knew about the 1919 Black Sox scandal. He refused to join teammates who threw the World Series in exchange for cash from gambler Arnold Rothstein.
MLB also went wild in its pride celebrations last June.
