Is Baseball Ready for a Gay Jackie Robinson?
Richard Greenberg’s Take Me Out, which won this year’s Tony award for best Broadway play, tells the story of a celebrated New York City baseball hero who announces that he’s gay. In reality, no gay major league player has ever publicly acknowledged his homosexuality while still in uniform. How close are we to real life imitating art? The U.S. Supreme Court’s June ruling in Lawrence v. Texas is one indication that Americans are increasingly accepting of homosexuals. Out-of-the-closet gays and lesbians have been elected to Congress and are prominent in the entertainment industry, business, journalism, and the clergy. Many big cities and suburbs have openly gay schoolteachers. TV sit-coms have openly gay characters and the New York Times now includes same-sex wedding announcements. Certain spheres of American life, however, have resisted change. The military has infamously clung to its code of “don’t ask, don’t tell.” Professional sports leagues may not enforce such a policy overtly, but
