Tuesday, November 9, 2010

The baseball story Ken Burns missed.

Being Gay in Major League Baseball – Arts – Utne Reader:

Image via Utne.

In “Out: The Glenn Burke Story,” the filmmakers tell a bleak story of one man’s failed struggle to achieve his potential in the face of prejudice and unfair treatment. But the filmmakers also tell a story that is relevant today, more than thirty years later. Such workplace prejudices against openly gay workers still exist—just look at the military’s “Don't Ask, Don't Tell” policy, which is so out-dated that a September ruling by a federal judge in Riverside, California, recently overturned it. But as for baseball, the most conservative and traditional-minded of all American sports, well, there may still be a ways to travel yet. As the film’s end credits point out, of the 6,552 men who have played in the Major Leagues since Burke’s last game in 1979 no one single player has dared come out as gay during his career.
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