The Texas Rangers are frustrating LGBTQ+ advocates as the only MLB team without Pride Night

As Pride Month – June’s celebration of LGBTQ+ culture and rights – comes and goes without the Rangers participating, McDonnell tried to explain the connection between his group and the team he has loved and loved for the better part of 50 years. he looked at.

“It’s a complicated relationship,” McDonnell said. “As someone who grew up watching the Rangers, as someone who has been going to games since the 1970s, some of my biggest and best memories are going to games at old Arlington Stadium with my late grandfather and listening to games on the radio in his room. backyard.

“It hurts me that this is still a problem (after) all these years.”

Embarrassingly, McDonnell said he considered not going to the parade with his friend when the Rangers celebrated their first World Series championship last fall. Finally he decided to go.

McDonnell, the Resource Center’s communications and advocacy manager, said the Rangers invited his group about five years ago to help them develop a policy of inclusivity.

The team has sent employees to volunteer for programs at an organization that emerged from the AIDS crisis in the 1980s and advocates for marriage equality and transgender rights.

While he has ongoing conversations with members of the Rangers staff, McDonnell says he can’t remember anything since last year’s five-game win over the Arizona Diamondbacks in the Fall Classic.

“For a long time I’ve thought it might be someone very high up in the organization who is against this, for some reason that isn’t clearly articulated,” McDonnell said. “To say the Rangers don’t do anything for the community, well, they did. But the hill they want to focus on is not Pride Night.”

Several years ago, MLB diversity officer Billy Bean, who came out as gay after a six-year playing career, said he believed there would eventually be a Pride Night at Globe Life Field, the retractable-roof home of the Rangers which will host the All-Star Game next month. MLB had no comment when asked last week about the status of the Rangers’ Pride Night.

McDonnell and DeeJay Johannessen — CEO of the HELP Center, an LGBTQ+ organization based in Tarrant County, where the Rangers play — also say they believe the Rangers will one day join the rest of the MLB with a Pride Night.

At the same time, McDonnell and Johannessen say the catalyst for change may have to be new ownership. Johannessen said he did not ask to speak with majority owner Ray C. Davis to discuss Pride.

“I didn’t do that, because honestly, that’s just not going to happen,” Johannessen said. “I’d love to meet Mr. Davis and talk about why it’s important. But I don’t think that’s on his priority list right now.”

Through a spokesperson, the Rangers declined a request from The Associated Press to interview Davis.

The team released a statement similar to one issued a year ago, listing several organizations they have sponsored and the steps they have taken internally to “create a welcoming, inclusive and supportive environment for fans and employees.”

“Our long-standing commitment remains the same: to make everyone feel welcome and included in Rangers baseball – in our ballpark, at every game and in everything we do – for both our fans and our employees,” the team said . “We deliver on this promise in our many programs to positively impact our entire community.”

The Rangers’ stance doesn’t stop Misty Lockhart, who lives near the ballpark, from attending about 35 games a year. She is also a big Dallas Stars fan and attended the NHL team’s Pride Night at the American Airlines Center in downtown Dallas in March.

Lockhart wore a No. 91 Tyler Seguin Pride jersey worn during warmups last year and signed by the Stars forward. The Stars logo on the front was in rainbow colors.

While she doesn’t believe the Rangers are at risk of losing fans because of their stance on Pride, Lockhart would prefer the Rangers complete the MLB picture on something that likely started in 2001 with the Chicago Cubs.

“I think if it was something where the MLB said, ‘We’re not in this,’ but the MLB is in it. And the Rangers chose not to do that,” Lockhart said. “I think this is the bigger problem: they actively chose not to participate in it.”

Lockhart says she doesn’t see Pride Night as a political issue, but acknowledges there would be more pressure on the Rangers if they had a stadium in central Dallas County, where the majority of elected officials are Democrats. Tarrant County, home to Arlington and Fort Worth, tends to be more talkative.

Will Davis — a Rangers fan from Marble Falls, about 200 miles southwest of the stadium in Central Texas — sees it as a political issue. He recently attended a game with his son’s youth baseball team.

“I think it is a private organization. And if they don’t want to have it, I don’t think they should be forced to have it,” Davis said. “In something like this, this is a way for people to go as a state. We don’t want political issues to be shoved down our throats one way or another, left or right. We come here to have a good time with friends or family and let it be.

The Rangers celebrate Mexican heritage during a game in June and have also dedicated evenings to other ethnic groups throughout the season, along with Boy Scouts/Girl Scouts, first responders, teachers and the military. The team recognizes colleges from the Dallas-Fort Worth area and the state.

Those celebrations make the absence even more noticeable, Johannessen said.

“I don’t think the issue here is whether they lose every game or whether they are World Series champions,” he said. “The issue is whether holding a Pride Night is something that the owners of the Rangers support.

“There may be deep-seated beliefs why they don’t want to do that,” Johannessen said. “And we have a lot of respect for that, but we also have to advocate for our community. Because it’s kind of a shame for the city of Arlington that their team is the only one not hosting Pride Night.”

The Rangers raised eyebrows when the slogan on the homepage of their website changed to “Straight Up Texas” from “Run it Back” sometime around June 1. The team has used the slogan “Straight Up Texas” in previous years and said the change had nothing to do with Pride Month.

Still, the attention the change received on social media illustrated the criticism the Rangers have drawn as the only MLB team without Pride Night.

“The Texas Rangers reached out to us about working together and providing services and volunteers,” said Johannessen, whose organization has provided health services to the LGBTQ+ community for 30 years, among other things. “That hasn’t actually happened yet. When they asked what they could do, the first thing I said was, ‘Let’s talk about a Pride Night.’”

AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb