Sports
Rookies and vets: CAPS edition
Local gay softball teams welcome new players
In the continuing Blade series on the rookies and veterans of the LGBT sports teams in Washington, two players from theĀ Chesapeake and Potomac Softball LeagueĀ step up to the plate.
Spring season ball started last weekend for the players and registration is now open for the summer league. This August, the League is expecting to send five teams to the Gay Softball World Series in Columbus, Ohio.
Softball player Glenn Conklin points to two athletes who exemplify the type of players the league is proud to spotlight.
āBilly Sanchez is a new player that has infused so much enthusiasm into his team that he has reminded us about having fun with the game,ā Conklin says. āChris Ryon is a long-time player who fosters relationships with rookie athletes to encourage them to stay in the sport and advance to more competitive divisions.ā
Sanchez grew up in California and began playing baseball for a travel team at age 7. He dropped the sport in high school because he was gay.
āI went to a Catholic high school and there was an incident in the locker room with a gay basketball player,ā Sanchez says. āThe desire to play was still there, but the obstacles felt too big.ā
It was especially disappointing for Sanchez because baseball was something he shared with his father.
After he settled into his career as a behavioral therapist, Sanchez began taking his students to baseball games as part of the curriculum. The urge to play again crept into his head and after moving to D.C. with his partner, he happened to be at Nellieās while the league was having its season kick-off party.
Sanchez was too late to join that season so he waited for the launch of the summer 2014 season.
āWhen I started playing and realized I could still do this, it was absolutely phenomenal,ā says Sanchez, who is 30 and plays shortstop. āI could still hear my father in my ear giving me tips.ā
Sanchez had his partner film some footage of him playing to send to his dad in California who responded with some familiar critiques, telling him he was making the same mistakes he made as a kid.
That was a great moment for Sanchez as it felt good to rebuild that part of their relationship.Ā His family even drove out for Sanchezās first softball tournament with his D.C. teammates in Las Vegas last January at the Sin City Shootout.
Sanchez noticed in his first season that the veteran players had a dominant presence and he found himself asking a lot of questions to help build similar relationships with the other players.
āIt feels good to be competitive again,ā Sanchez says. āI love the team comraderie. This feels like a big family.ā
Chris Ryon grew up in Northern Virginia and played every sport he could get his hands on including tennis, soccer, track & field and swimming. Two sports missing from his list were baseball and softball.
He dropped out of sports after college and something clicked in him when he came out at age 27.
āI was looking for something and realized that sports had been such a big part of my life,ā Ryon says. āI had no gay experience and no softball experience, so I joined the league in 2006.ā
Ryon had always liked watching baseball, but found out that he was pretty lousy at playing.
āI could catch and run,ā Ryon says, ābut I was lucky if any of my ground balls made it out of the infield.ā
His answer to that was to spend a lot time keeping score for other teams and reading baseball literature such as the book from legendary baseball player Ted Williams on the science of hitting.
Ryon ended up leaving the LGBT league and joining a straight league, the D.C. Think Tank League. He found their league to be boring and he returned to Chesapeake and Potomac Softball where he formed his own team.
Now in his 10th year as a softball player, the 37 year-old athlete, who is employed in network tech support, has found his niche in the LGBT softball community.
āIf I see a player who is struggling, I will offer tips,ā Ryon says. āThe details are what make for better softball.ā
Tournament action started for Ryon five years ago and he is hooked on what they have to offer. He has traveled to multiple cities including Las Vegas, Boston, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Houston and the 2014 Cleveland/Akron Gay Games.
In the past few years, his improvement on the field has led to two tournament titles and three second place finishes.
āPlaying for so many years, it was great to finally win one. I love the tournaments because you get to play all day,ā says Ryon, who plays second base. āWinning is a mindset as much as it is an ability. Every play can change a game.ā
Recently, the veteran asked the rookie to join his travel team for the upcoming Philadelphia tournament.
āI have seen how Sanchez plays; he has a great arm,ā Ryon says. āPlaying with new players improves everyoneās abilities.ā
CONTENT WARNING: The following story discusses suicide ideation.
Her first few weeks behind bars in a Russian prison took a terrible toll on Brittney Griner, the lesbian WNBA star who is breaking her silence on the 10 months she was held on drug-related charges.
“I wanted to take my life more than once in the first weeks,” Griner told ABC’s Robin Roberts in a primetime interview Wednesday. “I felt like leaving here so badly.”
The two-time Olympic gold medalist and nine-time WNBA All-Star, who plays for the Phoenix Mercury, said she ultimately decided against suicide, partly because she feared Russian authorities would not release her body to her wife, Cherelle Griner.
Griner, 33, was arrested on Feb. 17, 2022, at Sheremetyevo International Airport in Khimki, a suburb of Moscow. Authorities said they found vape cartridges in her luggage containing cannabis oil, which is illegal in the country.
Griner told Roberts that was the result of a āmental lapseā on her part ā packing the cannabis oil cartridges in her luggage, Griner said that she had overslept on the morning she was leaving for Russia to play during the WNBA’s off-season, which is how many of the leagueās vastly underpaid players earn a living, compared to NBA players.
So, she packed while she was āin panic mode,ā Griner said.
āMy packing at that moment was just throwing all my stuff in there and zipping it up and saying, āOK, I’m ready,āā she told Roberts.
After landing in Russia, Griner realized that she had those two cannabis oil cartridges in her luggage as Russian security officers inspected her bag at the airport. She recalled the moment as a sinking feeling.
āI’m just like, āOh, my God.ā Like, āHow did I ā how did I make this mistake?āā Griner said. āI could just visualize everything I worked so hard for just crumbling and going away.ā
Russian authorities immediately arrested Griner, but her trial would not take place for five months. She described the horrible conditions of her imprisonment during that delay, saying that she didnāt always have toilet paper and that the toothpaste they gave her had expired about 15 years ago.
āThat toothpaste was expired,ā she said. āWe used to put it on the black mold to kill the mold on the walls.ā
āThe mattress had a huge blood stain on it, and they give you these thin two sheets,ā she added. āSo you’re basically laying on bars.ā
On July 7, 2022, Griner pleaded guilty at her trial to drug charges, admitting that she had the vape cartridges containing cannabis oil but stating she put them in her luggage unintentionally. She testified that she had packed the cartridges by accident, and had “no intention” to break Russian law.
Roberts pressed Griner on this point: āYou know there are those who say, āCome on. How did you not know that you had cartridges in your luggage?āā
āIt’s just so easy to have a mental lapse,ā Griner replied. āGranted, my mental lapse was on a more grand scale. But it doesn’t take away from how that can happen,ā she explained.
Griner was sentenced to nine years in prison on Aug. 4, 2022, and in October 2022, a judge denied the appeal filed by Griner’s attorneys.
The sentence landed Griner in a penal colony in the Russian region of Mordovia.
āItās a work camp. You go there to work,ā said Griner. āThere’s no rest.ā Her job was cutting fabric for Russian military uniforms.
āWhat were the conditions like there?ā Roberts asked.
āReally cold,ā Griner said. So cold that her health was impacted and she decided to chop off her long dreadlocks.
āWhat was that like losing that part of you, too?ā Roberts asked Griner.
āHonestly, it just had to happen. We had spiders above my bed ā making nests,ā she said. āMy dreads started to freeze,ā she added. āThey would just stay wet and cold and I was getting sick. You’ve gotta do what you’ve gotta do to survive.ā
Her arrest came around the same time as Russiaās invasion of Ukraine, further increasing tensions between Russia and the U.S. But as the Los Angeles Blade reported on Dec, 8, 2022, Russia agreed to release Griner in exchange for Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout.
However, before winning her freedom, Griner revealed authorities forced her to write a letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“They made me write this letter. It was in Russian,” she said. “I had to ask for forgiveness and thanks from their so-called great leader. I didn’t want to do it, but at the same time I wanted to come home.”
Griner said her heart sank upon boarding the plane to freedom and finding that Paul Whelan, another American the White House said was āwrongfully detained,ā wasn’t leaving Russia with her.
“I walked on and didn’t see him, maybe he’s next. Maybe they will bring him next,” she said. “They closed the door, and I was like, are you serious? You’re not going to let this man come home now.”
Griner recounts on the experience in āComing Home,ā a memoir set to be released on May 7.
988 is the National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline and is available 24/7 via phone, text or chat to everyone of all ages, orientations and identities. If you are a transgender, nonbinary, or gender-nonconforming person considering suicide, Trans Lifeline can be reached at 877-565-8860. LGBTQ+ youth (ages 24 and younger) can reach the Trevor Project Lifeline at 1-866-488-7386. You can still also contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 24 hours a day, and itās available to people of all ages and identities.
Additional resources:
If you are in a life-threatening situation, please dial 911.
If you are in crisis, please dial 988 or contact Rainbow Youth Project directly at +1 (317) 643-4888
Sports
Bisexual former umpire sues Major League Baseball for sexual harassment
Brandon Cooper claims female colleague sexually harassed him
A fired former umpire is suing Major League Baseball, claiming he was sexually harassed by a female umpire and discriminated against because of his gender and his sexual orientation.
Brandon Cooper worked in the minor league Arizona Complex League last year, and according to the lawsuit he filed Wednesday in federal court in Manhattan, he identifies as bisexual.
āI wanted my umpiring and ability to speak for itself and not to be labeled as āBrandon Cooper the bisexual umpire,āā he told Outsports. āI didnāt want to be labeled as something. It has been a passion of mine to simply make it to the Major Leagues.ā
But that didnāt happen. Instead of being promoted, he was fired. His suit names MLB and an affiliated entity, PDL Blue, Inc., and alleges he had endured a hostile work environment and wrongful termination and/or retaliation because of gender and sexual orientation under New York State and New York City law.
āHistorically the MLB has had a homogenous roster of umpires working in both the minor and major leagues,ā Cooper claims in his suit. āSpecifically, to date there has never been a woman who has worked in a (regular) season game played in the majors, and most umpires are still Caucasian men. To try to fix its gender and racial diversity issue, defendants have implemented an illegal diversity quota requiring that women be promoted regardless of merit.ā
Cooper claims former umpire Ed Rapuano, now an umpire evaluator, and Darren Spagnardi, an umpire development supervisor, told him in January 2023 that MLB had a hiring quota, requiring that at least two women be among 10 new hires.
According to the suit, Cooper was assigned to spring training last year and was notified by the senior manager of umpire administration, Dusty Dellinger, that even though he received a high rating in June from former big league umpire Jim Reynolds, now an umpire supervisor, that women and minority candidates had to be hired first.Ā
Cooper claims that upon learning Cooper was bisexual, fellow umpire Gina Quartararo insulted him and fellow umpire Kevin Bruno by using homophobic slurs and crude remarks. At that time, Quartararo and Cooper worked on the same umpiring crew and being evaluated for possible promotion to the big leagues.
This season, Quartararo is working as an umpire in the Florida State League, one of nine women who are working as minor league umpires.
Cooper said he notified Dellinger, but instead of taking action against Quartararo, he said MLB ordered Cooper to undergo sensitivity training. According to his lawsuit, he was also accused of violating the minor league anti-discrimination and harassment policy.
Cooperās suit says he met with MLB Senior Vice President of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Billy Bean ā who the Los Angeles BladeĀ reported in DecemberĀ is battling cancer.Ā
The lawsuit says at that meeting, Bean told the umpire that Quartararo claimed she was the victim, as the only female umpire in the ACL. Cooper said he told Bean Quartararo regularly used homophobic slurs and at one point physically shoved him. He also claims that he has video evidence, texts and emails to prove his claim.
But he said his complaints to Major League Baseball officials were ignored. His lawsuit said MLB passed him over for the playoffs and fired him in October. He said of the 26 umpires hired with Cooper, he was the only one let go.
Through a spokesperson, MLB declined to comment on pending litigation. Quartararo has also not publicly commented on the lawsuit.
Sports
Brittney Griner, wife expecting first child
WNBA star released from Russian gulag in December 2022
One year after returning to the WNBA after her release from a Russian gulag and declaring, āIām never playing overseas again,ā Phoenix Mercury star Brittney Griner and her wife announced they have something even bigger coming up this summer.
Cherelle, 31, and Brittney, 33, are expecting their first child in July. The couple shared the news with their 715,000 followers on Instagram.
āCanāt believe weāre less than three months away from meeting our favorite human being,ā the caption read, with the hashtag, #BabyGrinerComingSoon and #July2024.
Griner returned to the U.S. in December 2022 in a prisoner swap, more than nine months after being arrested in Moscow for possession of vape cartridges containing prescription cannabis.
In April 2023, at her first news conference following her release, the two-time Olympic gold medalist made only one exception to her vow to never play overseas again: To return to the Summer Olympic Games, which will be played in Paris starting in July, the same month āBaby Grinerā is due. āThe only time I would want to would be to represent the USA,ā she said last year.
Given that the unrestricted free agent is on the roster of both Team USA and her WNBA team, itās not immediately clear where Griner will be when their first child arrives.
The Griners purchased their āforever homeā in Phoenix just last year.
āPhoenix is home,ā Griner said at the Mercuryās end-of-season media day, according toĀ ESPN. āMe and my wife literally just got a place. This is it.ā
As the Los Angeles Blade reported last December, Griner is working with Good Morning America anchor Robin Roberts ā like Griner, a married lesbian ā on an ESPN television documentary as well as a television series for ABC about her life story. Cherelle is executive producer of these projects.
Next month, Grinerās tell-all memoir of her Russian incarceration will be published by Penguin Random House. Itās titled “Coming Home” and the hardcover hits bookstores on May 7.