The Futility Infielder

Alex Ciepley is unique among baseball bloggers -- to the best of my knowledge he's the only openly gay one around. The Brooklyn-dwelling Ciepley keeps a blog called ball talk that focuses primarily on the Chicago Cubs, and not in a "Sammy Sosa is soooo dreamy" kind of way. As passionate and articulate a fan as the next blogger, Ciepley's recent posts have ben focused on stathead concepts like VORP, SNWRP, and PECOTA. I had the pleasure of meeting him recently, and he's as starved for hot-stove banter as the next fan.

But Alex is well aware that there's a chunk of turf that he can call his own, and last night he sent out an email: "I feel its been too long since I've actually written anything in my baseball blog that has much to do with gay issues, so I've rectified the situation with my look at the top 10 gay icons in baseball. Some people may be horrified, some may be uninterested, but hopefully it'll be worth a chuckle or two."

True to his word, the Top 10 Gay Icons article is a howl, as Ciepley rounds up many of the usual suspects (the ones not-so-wittily lampooned by anonymous posters at a certain website) and offers his commentary. Some of it is tart and catty; on Mike Piazza (who I've always held doesn't exhibit enough good taste to be gay), Alex writes: "Some might say the lady doth protest too much...," and on Roberto Alomar: "Alomar had a wee mustache in his youth, and later sported full-on beards, most notably tennis star Mary Pierce." Ouch.

But much of Ciepley's commentary is more incisive. About Billy Bean, author Going the Other Way, he writes:

No OBP-obsessed assistants. No Moneyball props. And no "e" in that last name. Baseball's other Billy B. spent his career in the closet, even playing in a game immediately following his first lover's death because he was too scared to ask for leave. Bean wasn't going to go through that again, and left a mediocre career in baseball to live with his boyfriend in Miami. He's the current Dean of Out Gay Professional Baseball Players. Not that he has any competition, being the only out player alive.

Ciepley also covers former NL umpire Dave Pallone, who came out in an autobiography in 1990, and Glenn Burke, a Dodgers and A's outfielder credited with inventing the high five and with being the first former player to acknowledge his homosexuality (alas, Burke died of AIDS in 1995). Pinups such as Brady Anderson and Gabe Kapler are also here; be advised that the linked Kapler picture isn't for the faint of heart.

Not on Ciepley's list: Cleveland Indians prospect Kazuhito Tadano, who reportedly appeared in a gay porn movie while in college three years ago -- "a one-time mistake." Bronx Banter's Alex Belth covers that strange tale as well as some more general commentary from other writers about the inevitability of an openly gay ballplayer. Meanwhile, a reader of Belth's offered this Bottom 10 Gay Icon list, which features unsexy guys such as Yogi Berra, Don Zimmer and Greg Luzinski, along with notorious homophobes Chad Curtis and John Rocker. To that dubious company, I'll nominate another loudmouthed bigot, Todd Jones, whose 7.08 ERA could pass for his IQ.

I think there's a pretty good chance we'll see an openly gay active ballplayer in the next few years, though I doubt it will be from Ciepley's Top 10. When it comes about, it will likely be a fiasco at first, and the guy will need a skin as thick and a courage as great as Jackie Robinson's, but he'll also have a lot of support behind him, especially in the media, and that will be key. I look forward to that day.