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Homoeroticism in Angels clubhouse, or just too much analyzing?
September 22nd, 2008, 10:10 am · 14 Comments · posted by Al Balderas, staff writer
When colleague Bill Plunkett recently wrote about the Angels’ annual hazing tradition, in which the Angels’ rookies were subjected to wearing women’s clothing on their flight from Oakland to Texas, Des Martini, of examiner.com might have responded with a little too much over-analysis.
Yes, Darren O’Day had to wear a purple mini-dress. Sean Rodriguez and Freddy Sandoval were Hooters Girls for a day. Others were also left to wear an array of skirts and dresses.
In his Friday posting, Martini questioned if some of the Angels players “foster homoerotic fantasies”.
Come on, dude. It’s done in fun. The rookies go along with it. And they get over it.
O’Day was given a little girl’s pink backback (I think it was a Barbie or My Little Pony one) to carry with him at the beginning of the season because he’s a rookie. When he was sent to the minors and replaced by Jose Arredondo, Arredondo got the backpack.
Where was the uproar then? Was there a hidden meaning in that? I doubt it.
What’s the best way to embarrass a testosterone-filled professional athlete? Make him wear something that’s anti-testosterone; something that’s a complete opposite to his lifestyle and career choice.
When I covered the Dodgers last season, the rookies on that squad found their Wrigley Field lockers full of costumes instead of their usual clothes after one game.
One player had to dress as a clown (makeup not included but the wig was), another as a Robin Hood-looking character, and the list went on. Outfielder Matt Kemp was forced to wear a fat-body suit (female version), complete with thong and tassels. Trust me, I have a hard time believing that Kemp’s appearance in that getup was the result of anyone’s fantasy, homoerotic or otherwise.
Martini connected the MLB hazing with a 2003 Sports Illustrated story that detailed a tragic hazing incident at a high school, in which players were sodomized with a broomstick.
As ugly as that incident might have been, I don’t see the connection. Yes, youngsters try to “emulate’ the pros (and that includes doing immature things) but you can’t blame all of society’s stupidity on what pro athletes do.
You can probably march out a line of “experts” who will claim that one leads to the other but you can probably find just as many who would refuse to make the same claim.
Martini also connected the hazing ritual with an incident earlier this season in which two blowup dolls appeared in the White Sox clubhouse. I still don’t get the connection.
The White Sox were trying to lighten the mood in their clubhouse while going through a slump. Though they could have opted to bring in a jazz band, or Criss Angel, they just happened to choose a lower-class form of entertainment.
The dolls were kept in the clubhouse, out of the eye of the public. The Angels’ rookies weren’t paraded around McAfee Coliseum in drag, keeping the stadium in Oakland a semi-family friendly place.
The Angels’ recent ritual, and that of most teams, are done on the road, away from the friendly confines of their home stadiums.
Boys will be boys and professional athletes just happen to be boys longer than the rest of us. As long as no one gets physically hurt by the rituals, let them have their fun.
14 Comments
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I totally agree with you Al..Baseball has its traditions just like everything else in life. Rookie hazings are part of the game, they are fun, and meant to be taken humorously, not seriously…People need to lighten up a bit and realize that its good for a team to joke around once in a while…These guys are in pressure situations day in and day out, and they need something to get their minds off the game sometimes. It brings a team closer and lets them have some fun..CHILL OUT PEOPLE!
It is just a joke among players, that’s all. There is no homo-eroticism there at all. I am one big Homo who happens to be a baseball fan and let me tell you that myself and other Homo’s do not dress in womens clothing. It does nothing for us at all; we like men and we like baseball players tight uniforms.
Has colleage Plunkett ever played on team sports, pee-wee baseball excluded? Hazing is typical. Reading homoerotic tendencies into hazing is typical too, if you’re an intellectual panty-waist who bears some animosity towards “jocks.”
It may be a bad drag show, but it is definitely not “homoerotic.” As a gay guy I can tell you, there is nothing “erotic” about men dressing as women -it’s more of a buzz kill.
Homoeroticism, YUCK!
I knew there was more to those low ‘attaboy’ pats.
Roryh - is that why you’re a fan?
That’s nice that these “boys” can chill out and play dress up for a little game of HAZING. But in today’s society, and with school age athletes looking up to these folks, is this really the best course of action? How many news reports of high school or junior high school athletes participating in various inappropriate levels of hazing do you need to read about to get it through your head that this is wrong?
Hey H-I and debaser — keep your criticism focused.
I reported the hazing as an example of a baseball tradition done for just for laughs. These guys spend six months together. Bonding and chemistry take a lot of forms.
It was Des Martini who made the giant leap to this being a threat to tolerance and decency in our society. Not me.
Seems to me we’ve got plenty of other problems more worthy of getting worked up over.
Yet the article forgets to mention the disturbing visual of Jason Giambi among many other Yankee’s who have worn a golden thong (underwear, not foortwear)
That’s right, Jason Giambi by choice wearing a golden thong when he’s in a slump, then passing it to Jeter and other Yankee’s who have also worn the same golden thong during their slumps.
Bill Plunkett - you go girl! And I mean that in a bonding sort of way.
As far as those ‘other problems.’ What ever happened to that “Youth in Asia” controversy? Are they OK?
A lot of male hazing ceremonies include “homoerotic” elements. I was a member of a major university marching band back East where the hazing was huge — as a female I was made to participate in some of the shenanigans, but the boys (it had traditionally been an all-male band for years) took the brunt of it. Dressing the guys in women’s clothes, giving them women’s names, calling them “gay” — it was all pretty stupid, and as a woman I found it kind of insulting that the biggest diss they could think of for a guy was “making” him into a “woman” or calling him “gay.” But all this goes back a LONG way in history - for instance, the shipboard tradition of the “line-crossing” or crossing the Equator is ancient and is still practiced in many navies, and still includes various traditions of a “beauty contest” in which male sailors (usually those who have never crossed the Equator before) are made to dress up like women and parade before “King Neptune” and his court. Yup, one can say it’s all in good fun, but I think in reality any folklore tradition like this tells us more about the fears and insecurities of the participants than they may be aware of. Men still have a lot of fear and insecurity about women, and one way to dispell that tension is to make fun of it. Now that women are achieving parity, there’s even more tension, and now we’re invading the formerly all-male party (as in marching bands or jobs or armies and navies which now include women as equals). So where does hazing go from here, I wonder?
Unbelievably ridiculous. Don’t people have better things to do besides worrying about rookie hazing??? Let’s prioritize people.
Good grief! l never read so much hubub over nothing. Absolutely no sense of humor with these jerks. l even thought it would be fun to have a calendar made, like the firemen and police do occasionally. Boy, l guess l’m WAY out of line!! Get over yourselves.
Hey, Can they take this one step further and maybe have everyone under .200 BA dress up? How about anyone who makes a bone-headed error or doesn’t hustle to first base dress up?
Don’t we pay these guys who are in “pressure situations”, still laughing at that one, ENOUGH to have them to set an example on and off the field? Just to be CLEAR, a “pressure situation” is day in and day out on the front line in Iraq.
Look, if they thought it was o.k. to do this they would not keep it “out of the eye of the public”. It’s just a matter of time before these yahoos bring on a lawsuit by some other yahoo who says that they were making fun of his “sexual orientation” or some silly thing like that.
WHY invite a lawsuit or a black eye on America’s favorite pastime?
They are not in college anymore and it’s time to stop with the spitting, crotch grabbing, and other tasteless behavior.