Congratulations to Jason Collins

Mr. Collins is the first active openly gay player of a major team sport, making him a hero and a trailblazer. Ironically, I saw the Jackie Robinson biopic "42" this past weekend and after watching the struggles of the first African American Major League Baseball player, I wondered to myself about when, if ever, I would see the first openly gay baseball player.   Here we are just days later and the possibility seems a lot greater now that there is an openly gay player in the NBA.  Robinson opened the door for other athletes and hopefully Collins does the same because regardless of what sport it is, this announcement took just as much courage, perhaps more.

Unlike Robinson, who was clearly not a white man, Collins could have continued to blend in to spare embarrassment, death threats, and being an outcast but he chose to be himself and that took bravery. So why is this announcement important? As a straight white girl I really don't have a first hand account of being ostrzied or the odd man out the way either of those men, do.  However, as a teenage girl who was equally obsessed with baseball and gay men, I read former baseball player Billy Bean's book  Going the Other Way... (http://www.billybean.com/) where he discussed what it was like being in the closet while being in the majors.  It was phenomenal and heart wrenching to read, and baseball fan or not, people should read it because it is an amazing biography.  Some things he discussed was how alone he felt, trying to live a double life to portray the lie, and how, when his partner died he was too afraid to tell anyone or miss a game.  He also spoke about the negative reactions from some of his former teammates and supposed friends. 

Unfortunately, that is the world we live in and Collins is probably receiving his share of angry mail.  However, what Bean also spoke about is the positive reactions and the letters where young gay men said they thought they'd never make it in the majors but now, because of him, they had hope.  Hopefully Collins is experiencing this as well because he has a heck of a task a head of him.  The first anything always does but hopefully, just like race no longer matters in baseball- only that the player delivers,  because of Jason Collins' bravery gay players will only be judged by their stats.