Anderson: The gay thing and sports
Share with others:
Imagine the isolation ...
Of being 23 years old and starting a career in a foreign country.
Of being away from family and friends and just about everything familiar except baseball.
Of not speaking the language, rarely having an interpreter around and communicating with an electronic translator.
Now, add to that an embarrassing skeleton that has escaped from the closet, the kind of thing that makes tabloid editors giddy and many others queasy.
That's the ledge where Cleveland Indians pitching prospect Kazuhito Tadano sits. He has handled his situation remarkably well, considering his transgression was appearing in a gay pornographic video doing something consistent with the genre.
This ought to be interesting.
The fallout, I mean.
Tadano, signed by the Indians a year ago and looking at a good chance to make it to the majors as a reliever at some point this season, went public in this country with his story last year as he moved from Class A to Class AA to Class AAA. He told his teammates. It got reported, but the news didn't spread.
Now that he's been invited to major-league camp for spring training, Tadano gained a national audience. He repeated the story for reporters in the Indians' clubhouse this week, with the assistance of an interpreter.
It was two years ago. Tadano was becoming a top college pitcher at Rikkyo University in Japan. Without a scholarship, he was, like so many others, a struggling student.
"I was young, playing baseball and going to college, and my teammates and I needed money," Tadano read from a statement. "If I were more mature and had really thought about the implications of what I did, it would have never happened."
He also made sure to add: "I'm not gay. I would like to clear that up right now."
The news broke earlier in Japan, and the reaction was sharp.
Tadano was projected as a top-three pick in the college draft there, but shortly beforehand a Japanese tabloid printed images from the video. Tadano was not drafted. His agent, Alan Nero, told The Associated Press he believed it was an orchestrated snub. It cost Tadano millions of dollars and forced him to look to the United States.
Indians general manager Mark Shapiro said that before signing Tadano for $67,500, the team looked into Tadano's past and decided the video was a one-time thing and that Tadano was an OK guy. The fact that the right-hander has heat, control and a good mix of pitches probably didn't hurt. He was a combined 6-2 with a 1.55 ERA and had 112 strikeouts against 22 walks in 99 innings last year at Kinston, Akron and Buffalo.
He is on Major League Baseball's horizon. Let's see how the sport, his teammates, opponents and fans react.
He seems to have a good attitude. Asked through his interpreter about the rude reception he might receive at, say, Yankee Stadium, Tadano quipped, "I don't understand English, so it doesn't really matter."
That sense of humor might come in handy, especially if he runs into a lot of John Rocker types.
You can twist what Tadano did in different ways. What if it was a female athlete who had made a skin flick -- straight or otherwise? What if Tadano had appeared in the video with a woman?
We don't flinch anymore about most sex scandals in sports. We even had some fun with Wilt Chamberlain's Casanova claims and Al Martin's Herculean double life. But this is different. It shouldn't be, but it is. It all gets back to the gay thing and sports.
Gay characters and inferences are the rage in the entertainment business, but there's still a taboo in sports.
Two years ago, when there were rumors that a New York Mets player was gay, catcher Mike Piazza held an impromptu news conference to proclaim his heterosexuality. Tadano felt the need to do the same.
Athletes' lives are so public now. We know more than any of us probably wanted. Now we know about Tadano.
There's no reason he shouldn't be able to pursue his baseball career and go as far as his talent will take him. It's not like he bet on baseball.
There are encouraging signs.
Fellow Cleveland prospect Grady Sizemore, a teammate and roommate of Tadano at times over the past year, supports him.
"You could tell he was nervous," Sizemore told the AP of Tadano's locker-room speech in Class AA Akron about his past. "But I don't think it changed anybody's opinion of him. After it was said and done, nobody thought anything more of it. He's a great guy and a great pitcher."
Indians starter C.C. Sabathia also preached tolerance.
"This is the right team and the right organization for him," Sabathia said. "We have good guys here. Everybody has done something that they regret in their lives. He's a person just like everyone else."
That sounds reasonable.
It's likely, though, that not everyone will be as broad-minded.
First Published January 30, 2004 12:00 am
