Effective today as of when the online edition of Sports Illustrated went live, the major male American team sports finally have one openly gay player. Jason Collins, a 12-year veteran of the NBA, published a first-person essay in Sports Illustrated in which he came out. From that essay:

I realized I needed to go public when Joe Kennedy, my old roommate at Stanford and now a Massachusetts congressman, told me he had just marched in Boston’s 2012 Gay Pride Parade. I’m seldom jealous of others, but hearing what Joe had done filled me with envy. I was proud of him for participating but angry that as a closeted gay man I couldn’t even cheer my straight friend on as a spectator. If I’d been questioned, I would have concocted half truths. What a shame to have to lie at a celebration of pride. I want to do the right thing and not hide anymore. I want to march for tolerance, acceptance and understanding. I want to take a stand and say, “Me, too.”

Good for you, Collins! Not on the being gay part; that’s not really so much an achievement. But being the first guy to actually say it has been surprisingly difficult for what must literally be hundreds of active players.

Steam has clearly been building for a while now and the topic has come up often thanks to almost 20% of the states in the US now allowing gay marriages. In fact, I talked about this just last month when Dusty Baker was quoted in a story about the dearth of homosexual players in baseball.

I’m glad that the seal has finally been broken. Of course, I’m a little disappointed that it wasn’t an MLB player. I think that would have been something really historical to have been a part of.

Aside: At first I wrote that headline as “hocking” furniture, since I’ve really only heard, and not read, the phrase. After a little internet research I realized that, in that sentence, “hocking” would mean “pawning.”

Thought I think Rose probably makes enough money writing things on baseballs that he doesn’t need to hock the end tables, I still think it might be a Freudian slip. After all, pawn shops do kind of bring to mind the same ambiance as I imagine being around Rose basically all of the time.

The Hardball Times is marking today as the 50th anniversary of Pete Rose’s major league debut. Chris Jaffe says:

Rose has been such a big name for such a long time that it’s easy to assume he’s always been part of the baseball landscape, but of course that wasn’t the case. Fifty years ago today he was just a cocky young middle infielder who was certain he belonged in the major leagues.

In his first trip to the big league plate on April 8, 1963, Rose got on base, though without getting a hit. Pirates pitcher Earl Francis walked him. Though Rose typically looked for a hit, he wasn’t excessively aggressive. He walked in about one-tenth of his big league trips, ending his career with 1,566 walks, 14th most all time.

Chris provides a lot more details, and also enumerates a load of other events that make today special in history. Read the whole story over at The Hardball Times.

I’ve been on vacation for over a week, so last night was the first regular-season Reds game I’ve gotten to watch on TV. And so while we’re on the topic of Rose anyway, I wanted to draw attention to this Muenchens Furniture commercial featuring him and his fiancee (or did they get married already? Hits and Mrs was taken off the air before I got completely steeped in minutia of Rose’s personal life):

“Wow! We’ll take it all!”…it’s just so poignant.

Hello, baseball fans!  Today is among the biggest days of the baseball calendar, and since the Red Hot Family has elected to spend Opening Day discreetly peeking into every police box in Britain, I have been called into service to provide you with the content you crave so ravenously after a grueling offseason.

Now you may be wondering: what does a fair-weather Reds fan with tepid interest in baseball in general have to offer you, the erudite, blog-reading maven you are? Perspective, and list-based content, of course!  I have compiled for your reading pleasure the five best and worst aspects of baseball to a layman such as myself. We’ll get to the good stuff a little later, let’s start with the crap.

(In no particular order)

_______________________________________________________________

#5   Brawls and the aftermath

Just like in all sports, baseball teams frequently piss each other off, both intentionally and unintentionally. The boiling point of this conflict tends to be the classic bench clearing brawl.  It frequently begins with the batter losing his cool and attacking the pitcher, which can have two hilarious outcomes.  Either the batter gets unceremoniously dumped from behind by the pursuing catcher, or the batter quickly realizing he’s in over his head and waits for his teammates to “hold him back”.

More commonly, however, a big sweaty wrestling match between grown men will occur until everyone loses interest.  The most offensively stupid aspect of this is that players and fans will whine about the events of the brawl after the players actively participated in it.  The most Reds-relevant example of this is the infamous Cueto-LaRue incident in 2010.  As everyone here surely remembers, Johnny Cueto started kicking in the scrum and gave Jason LaRue a concussion that ended his career.  Reds fans defended Cueto as safeguarding himself in a chaotic situation, while Cards fans decried Cueto’s irresponsible behavior.

Let’s revisit those ideas once more in roleplay:

a Cards Fan: “Johnny Cueto should have been more careful to not hurt anyone while fighting 30 professional athletes simultaneously!”

a Reds Fan: “Johnny Cueto had to kick someone in the head to keep himself safe in a giant fight that he entered willingly!”

Maybe we could avoid all injury by not settling matters like 5-year-olds?  I can hear the purists now, though, ranting and raving about the conventions and standards that the players of the game have upheld for generations!  Which reminds me…

_______________________________________________________________

#4   Unwritten Rules

Every now and then, curiosity will get the better of me and I’ll google a list of the unwritten rules of baseball. A lot of them exist to promote good sportsmanship, like not stealing when up big or taking the first strike after back to back homers.  This is all fine, but why not just have “Be a good sport” as the rule?  I don’t understand why these rules have to be so specific.

Beyond that, a lot of the rules I read are axioms on what should always be done in specific game situations. One example is only using your closer in late-game situations and with the lead. These are great because hard-and-fast rules that make no exceptions for the context of the game are always the best.  As a manager, why would you want to make a hard decision and take the blame for it when you can just cop out and regurgitate the cliche to the media afterwards?

Still more of these rules are in place because of the immense superstition held by seemingly everyone in the sport.  Hey! Speaking of the backward thinking of cavemen…

______________________________________________________________

#3   The Boys’ Club

Nothing chaps my ass quite like idiots justifying their idiocy with an indignant “that’s the way it’s always been.” Baseball is hardly the only sport with gender issues, but baseball’s own issues came to the forefront in 2006 with Keith Hernandez’s on-air comments regarding Padres massage therapist Kelly Calabrese.

“I won’t say women belong in the kitchen. But they don’t belong in the dugout.”

As the expression goes, a gaffe is when you tell the truth.  Hernandez was properly excoriated for the comment in the media, but he unwittingly gave us a peek at a significant school of thought that exists in the baseball world.

But in the non-baseball world women have been (more or less) treated as equals to men for decades now, how about a group with more 2013 media buzz?  Let’s ask former Brewer Mark Knudsen!

“Personal agendas are not welcome. Nothing that infringes on the cohesiveness of the locker room can be tolerated…That’s why it remains the best option for any homosexual athlete in a team sport to keep his orientation private.”

Nothing worse than those selfish gays ruining everything with their personal agendas of gayness. When I picture the united locker room of a champion, it needs one out of every ten players deathly afraid that their secret become known and their career ending because of it.

Once again, baseball is not unique among sports with these problems, and it is not necessarily fair to paint baseball with a broad brush due to isolated comments.  However, these ideas obviously persist in a significant amount of the baseball industry, and they will never ever be acceptable.

_______________________________________________________________

 #2   The Farm System

Now that all the icky social issues are out of the way, let’s move on to something more small potatoes.  Of the 3 major sports in the United States, baseball has by far the least compelling farm system in terms of competition.

NCAA baseball is a putrid mess of unfair playing practices and regional bias.  As the season starts in February-March, cold-weather schools are forced to play every single game on the road until their campus weather permits play. NCAA Tournament selection occurs on Memorial Day, so these schools never have an opportunity to balance their schedule.  Notable collegiate prospects don’t want to shoot their own careers in the foot, and thus opt to play for warm-weather schools, and the cycle continues.  Only 4 of the last 30 NCAA baseball champions came from cold-weather states.

Minor league baseball is a step up.  The stadium environments are family friendly and some of the most affordable sporting events one can attend.  However, their ultimate purpose of grooming talent rather than winning championships puts a cap on how attached one can be to a team.

_______________________________________________________________

 #1   Fear of technology

Baseball has a unique advantage over other sports in that there are relatively few judgment calls that umpires are forced to make like fouls in basketball or pass interference penalties in football.  In theory, fair or foul, strike or ball, and out or safe are black-and-white calls to be made with as much consistency as possible. However, baseball seems the most reticent of the major sports to place trust in replay and ball placement technology.  There seems to be significant resistance to depowering the umpires, which I can’t fathom.

There is no argument that replay in all facets will result in fewer calls being missed, and replay delays and other issues in more tech-friendly sports are nearly invariably due to referee ineptitude.

_______________________________________________________________

Are you all pissed at me yet?  Are you dutifully reading the entirety of the article before meticulously destroying my points in the comments? Good! I can’t wait to hear from you!

 

Stay tuned for my 5 best things about baseball. Yeah, I really do like baseball!

 

Last Game
The Reds pulled their spring training record down to 5-13 yesterday with a loss to the Mariners. Homer Bailey gave up 3 runs (earned) on 6 hits over 4.0 innings of work, but left the game with a sizeable lead. Seattle did their coming back on Clay Hensley who pitched the next 2.0 innings and gave up 4 runs (earned) on 3 hits and a walk. He also struck out five, for what it’s worth.

Chris Heisey, Zack Cozart, Denis Phipps, and Jason Donald had multi-hit games for the Reds. Joey Votto went 0-for-2 but still had a run scored, thanks to hitting into a fielder’s choice.

Next Game
The Reds host the Rockies tonight at 10:05 p.m. Johnny Cueto will take the mound for the Reds against Jeff Francis for the Rockies.

George Foster to Marshall the Opening Day Parade
Opening Day is a huge deal in Cincinnati, and every year they select a celebrity to be the grand marshal of the parade. This year they’ve selected George Foster. From the story on Cincinnati.com:

Foster is a former member of the Big Red Machine and a National League MVP (1977) who spent 11 of his 18 major league seasons with the Reds.

“I think sometimes George gets lost in the shadow of Bench, Rose and Morgan, but if you look at his stats, he was just as big a part of the Big Red Machine as anyone,” said Neil Luken, chairman of the 94th annual parade. “And to boot, he’s just a nice guy.”

April 1 will be here before you know it!

What to Say to Sound Smart at the Water Cooler
When the Reds faced the Rockies’ pitcher that they’ll be facing tonight earlier this spring, Cozart grounded into a triple play.

The New York Times interviewed Ken Griffey, Jr over the weekend, talking to him about his family and his role as an ambassador for the World Baseball Classic (WBC).

Here in the U.S., we need to do a better job of supporting our team. The support isn’t as much as it should be. For me, I want a team where I have to turn guys away. I want to be the guy to say, “We’re already full.” You look at the enthusiasm from the other countries and how guys want to play for their team. I think it’s a little different here. But it can change, and it should change.

The WBC is definitely more popular in other countries than in the US. And it’s the same with me. I know I don’t go out of my way to watch any WBC games. In some ways, I think US interest in the tournament is depressed by the existence of MLB. With the exception of Canada, none of the other countries see major-league talent every day during the summer. This is their chance to see and compare their country’s athletes against the best.

For me, it feels like watching an all star version of spring training, with less of the meaningfulness of the actual All Star game. Of course, I’m not the target audience. I already like baseball; I don’t need to be sold.

I understand the desire to make it more popular in the US, and support from Griffey and the inclusion of bigger stars will help. But right now, I still feel the ending of the 2012 MLB season. And only the Cincinnati Reds playing real baseball can assuage that. The WBC is a pale substitute.