Back on Friday, June 13th, the Los Angeles Dodgers held their annual Pride Night event. To get the cat out of the bag, I’m not the biggest fan of corporate Pride events. More often than not, they are pinkwashing affairs, meant to distract from actions that the corporation in question hopes you will forget about. It sucks, too, because the LGBTQ+ community offers a lot to our society, and they certainly deserve to be celebrated. That being the case, I don’t begrudge anyone who trekked to Dodger Stadium that night and celebrated Pride and the LGBTQ+ community at large.
Unbeknownst to most in attendance that night, mainly because he wasn’t pitching, Dodgers legend Clayton Kershaw had decided to inscribe a bible verse on his Pride Night Dodgers hat. It was the verse, Gen. 9:12-16, which says,
12 And God said, ‘This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: 13 I have set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. 14 When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, 15 I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh. And the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. 16 When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.’
If all one knew was that bit of scripture, there’s little chance of controversy. Kershaw is religious, and that scripture could be read as being about inclusion. Unfortunately, we don’t live in a vacuum, and history is full of hate groups using that specific scripture to attack the LGBTQ+ community. This post isn’t about them, so I’m not going to go into great detail about how any asshole hate groups have used that scripture to malign, attack, and denounce the LGBTQ+ community.
There was plenty of back and forth about what Kershaw’s gesture meant. Some fell on the side of it being Kershaw’s way of including the LGBTQ+ community in his faith. Others came away from that night proclaiming Kershaw to be homophobic and that he was making a clear statement about needing to take the rainbow back from the LGBTQ+ community. Others agreed with the latter part of that sentence but felt that rather than being homophobic, Kershaw was crusading for Christianity against the evil wokeness of homosexuality.
Less than a month later, Clayton Kershaw was pitching at Dodger Stadium, and on that night, he added another feather to his iconic career, his 3000th strikeout. It was a joyous occasion for most Dodgers fans and for most baseball fans in general. I, however, initially reacted with some vitriol and then realized I was simply numb to the accomplishment. It’s not that getting 3000 strikeouts isn’t a big deal; it’s still a very big deal. Rather, my thoughts on Kershaw were now in turmoil. The numbness was due to the fact that while I don’t know for sure that Kershaw’s act on Pride Night was one of homophobia, it sure as heck feels that way to me.
There’s nothing I can add beyond the numb feeling I have, to be honest. I’m not a Dodgers fan, and I’ve never really felt much towards Kershaw one way or another. I do, however, love baseball, and I love big baseball accomplishments. Instead of celebrating one such accomplishment, I was at first angry, then mostly numb, and I still remain that way. They tell you to never meet your heroes, but the reality is that every purported hero is nothing more than a human being. It’s not a matter of meeting them or not, but of their humanity eventually coming out in one way or another. When it leaves you feeling numb for their grandest of accomplishments, well, that’s just bad for baseball and bad for the baseball soul.
Lead photo courtesy of Unknown – Fox Sports West
