TORONTO — For the past 11 days, the Blue Jays have disappointed and hurt the LGBTQ+ community. Yet, Sean Addis, a gay man and longtime Blue Jays fan, found himself sitting in the 500 section at the Rogers Centre ahead of Friday’s Pride Weekend festivities.
“It didn’t feel like anyone was listening to the community,” said Addis, who brought with him mixed emotions after watching his favourite team bungle what could have been a straightforward decision around Anthony Bass.
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The 35-year-old reliever with a 4.95 ERA spent the past 11 days on the roster after publicly endorsing a hateful anti-LGBTQ+ video on his social media. But during his drive from Ottawa to Toronto, Addis learned Bass had been designated for assignment on Friday, of all days. It was a decision the general manager Ross Atkins would later classify as mainly a baseball move.
“I checked the phone and I saw he was DFA’d and I got emotional again, and not in a good way,” said Addis. “I thought, really? This is the day you’re going to do it. I didn’t know why. I’ll be honest with you. I have a lot of conflicting (thoughts) because a part of me is like, why now? What changed in a day?”
Indeed. If the Blue Jays purport to care about their LGBTQ+ fans and inclusivity in general, they’ve done a poor job of showing it over the past two weeks with their mishandling of the Bass situation. For those 11 days the Blue Jays kept Bass on the roster, rather than DFA him immediately, they sent their LGBTQ+ fans a message. And it was not a good one.
The reliever got two chances to give a public apology, neither of which felt genuine or satisfactory to members of the LGBTQ+ community The Athletic has spoken to over the past 24 hours in the wake of this. (For starters, he kept calling it the “Pride community,” which is not a thing.) On Thursday, Bass defended his “personal beliefs,” which the video calling on boycotting brands like Target and Budweiser for their support of Pride initiatives aligned with. He only took the post down because it was a “distraction,” he said.
Management, meanwhile, offered little more than a statement that distanced itself from “individual players’ sentiments” in the immediate aftermath. Only on Thursday — 10 days later — did Atkins finally tell reporters that he took Bass’ “accountability to be authentic” when he apologized to the GM, the manager and his teammates.
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“I don’t feel Anthony wants any harm or for anyone to feel anything less than equal,” Atkins said on Friday.
Yet after his comments Thursday, it was clear that Bass still did not grasp how harmful his actions and words were. His behaviour was becoming a distraction for the team, too.
But if you thought this was the moment when the organization would finally make clear that they strongly condemned his views, that they did not align with the team’s culture and that is why he is gone, well, you thought wrong. Standing at the goal line with an open net to score some much-needed public-relations points and finally stand up for a community they’ve deeply hurt in recent weeks, Atkins stated that adding Mitch White and designating Bass for assignment was about “building the best possible team.”
“There’s a lot of variables that go into every decision, but the focus is making the best possible team we can make,” he said, adding that the Bass situation “did become a distraction” and that “was a variable in that decision.”
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But, again, why now? The club could’ve made a baseball decision 11 days ago when Bass was still the weak link in the bullpen. He could have been DFA’d then and another reliever, surely, could have filled his spot. Maybe the Blue Jays were worried about a grievance from the MLBPA. The club also clearly believed Bass when he said he was going to educate himself, only to have that backfire on them when his apology did more harm than good.
Major League Baseball is a business, and none of us are naive to that. There was a belief the Blue Jays had been shopping Bass — who in recent days also expressed interest in leaving the organization, where he no longer felt he could perform, according to a major-league source. The team very nearly traded him this week. Now they have 10 days to do so. If they don’t, he will be released and free to sign elsewhere.
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Listening to Atkins speak about baseball decisions and variables, what I kept thinking about was the members of the LGBTQ+ community — and their allies — who’ve felt betrayed and disappointed throughout this ordeal. I asked Atkins about the entire charade of keeping Bass on the team for 11 days, inflicting unnecessary hurt on a community that has already been under attack across North America, only to DFA him in the end.
“I wish that we could take that back if that is the case,” Atkins said. “We definitely don’t want anyone feeling any hurt. We’re focused on the environment. We care about this community, we care about our fans. And I deeply regret if people do feel that way, (it) certainly was not our intention. And these are very difficult decisions that have a lot of variables that go into them.”
I spent the past day or so reaching out to Blue Jays fans who are members of the LGBTQ+ community. Initially, I was interested in hearing how they were feeling with the Bass incident hanging over Pride Weekend festivities, especially considering he was supposed to catch the ceremonial first pitch. It was an idea Bass and Pride Toronto executive director Sherwin Modeste agreed to when they met earlier this week, but one that was met with resistance from the community and expected to attract booing from the crowd had it occurred.
In speaking to those LGBTQ+ fans about Bass’ actions and comments, and the Blue Jays’ response, the emotions were described with words like exhausting, devastated and conflicted.
“It didn’t seem like enough,” said Angelo Persico, who said he had been hoping the front office would immediately release Bass. “I feel like they’re really just protecting this player who’s probably been — I understand it’s a business, too — but he’s probably been one of the worst players on the roster the entire season. And I don’t know why they’re protecting him so much.”
When it came to the matter of supporting the club during the weekend’s festivities, there were mixed feelings, as well. Stephanie Malek told me she’s long felt at odds about her fandom. She remembers when former players Yunel Escobar and Kevin Pillar were involved in homophobic incidents. (Both those players received multi-game suspensions from the team; Bass received no internal discipline.) And while Malek understood why many people support the club’s Pride festivities, she could not.
“Each person celebrates their own identity and their own pride, for lack of a better word, in the way that they choose,” Malek said. “I would never hold that against anyone who’s looking for a place where they feel like they can be welcomed. And also in this case, be around a lot of other queer people who are also Jays fans. But I just know that my ticket money on that weekend will show that it’s a symbol of support of the club and I don’t really want to give them my money, specifically to that initiative, until they’re showing that it’s something beyond just a marketing ploy to get their logo next to a rainbow.”
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Nicole Burk, however, did attend Friday night’s game, despite conflicted feelings.
“The team has created an event for the last several years that is supposed to be a safe space for the LGBTQ+ community, and Bass’s comments have definitely broken that feeling of safety and celebration. Regardless, the community deserves to be celebrated,” Burk shared in an email.
Similarly, Justin Havelock attended on Friday. He said while he’s heard from fellow members of the LGBTQ+ community who feel torn about their fandom recently, Havelock’s perspective is that “this team is so much bigger than Anthony Bass, and even the front office.”
“This is something that when I was a kid, I could have never possibly imagined going to a Blue Jays game and seeing people walking around in drag and drag performances and Pride flags everywhere,” he said. “I couldn’t have imagined that growing up. That’s definitely something that I want to celebrate and to enjoy.”
Bass did take a first step and met with a member of Pride Toronto. Despite the hurt the community felt, a couple of people mentioned that they still hoped Bass could continue to learn, and continue his outreach with the LGBTQ+ community.
“I’m disappointed that Bass wasn’t able to take this as an opportunity for growth and to learn how to become an ally,” Havelock said. “We need to make sure there’s a path forward for people that have made mistakes or held negative beliefs in the past but are willing to put in the work to change. Having said that, people need to be willing to put in the effort and meet us halfway.”
Meanwhile, sitting up in the 500 section, Addis said that when he was a 13-year-old boy, he was told that “f— have no place in sports.” He quit baseball, a sport he loved, shortly thereafter, and didn’t pick up again until he was an adult. On Friday, looking out onto a Rogers Centre decorated with rainbow flags, he was thinking of his younger self.
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“I have a right to be here and to be around the people I want to be and I think that’s important,” he said. “I want to be honest with you. They still need to be held accountable. This is not going away. This isn’t done. … This is a far deeper issue within the organization.”
(Top photo: Mark Blinch / Getty Images)