The Edmonton Capitals of the Golden Baseball League announced Saturday that manager Brent Bowers has been suspended for remainder of the season and fined $5,000 for a horrific on-field homophobic attack against an openly gay umpire, Billy Van Raaphorst that led to Bowers being ejected from a game July 31st in Orange Country, California, against the Orange County Express. This comes one week after an embarrassingly weak decision by the GBL to suspend Bowers a mere two game; a ruling that angered Van Raaphorst’s umpire colleagues who threatened to boycott calling the remainder of the season. The team, which is owned by Daryl Katz, who also owns the Edmonton Oilers, the NHL franchise, and somewhat confusingly Oiler’s governor Patrick LaForge at a press conference Saturday said that Bowers had in fact resigned after being suspended by GBL commissioner Kevin Outcalt Friday in San Francisco. “Brent’s activities, in our terms, went beyond what’s acceptable,” said LaForge. “We support the Golden Baseball League in their decision to suspend him for the balance of the season, and we further support Brent’s decision to resign. We did not ask him to resign. He has chosen to resign and get on with his life” When asked if Bowers admitted or denied published reports of what he said and did during the July 31st game, LaForge said “No, from his conversation with me – and I’ve asked him the question directly – he does not deny it.” As I posted Friday, details from Van Raaphorst’s ejection report show that after a questionable call, Bowers attacked the umpire, yelling “You know what I heard? I heard you are fucking faggot. The rumour from several managers and people in the league is that you are a fag. I ought to kick your ass, you faggot.” LaForge also announced that in the wake of Bower’s anti-gay verbal assault, the Oilers will provide diversity training for both the baseball and the hockey organization, saying that “I think our organization, for 30 years, has been pretty active in supporting diversity in every form, ethnic, cultural, religious diversity in this city and everywhere we’ve gone,” LaForge said. “I want to live in that kind of community and I know that our organization wants to live in that kind of community.”
It is a nice sentiment, certainly, but it avoids even mentioning in passing the real issue: homophobia. In fact, the league itself in apologizing for the incident couched the apology in terms of the need to respect and protect the umpires, writing on the GBL website that Bowers’ was ejected from the game because of “severe verbal abuse including anti-gay slurs,” but makes no mention of apologizing to the gay community – fans, players, etc- and instead writes that the “daily contribution made by umpires to our league and the fans is extremely valuable and they must be respected.” I think is an opportunity that should have been seized upon, one to educate and illustrate that anti-gay sentiment on or off the field is entirely unacceptable, and instead, mistakenly, the talk is of diversity training.
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