CREDIT PILLAR FOR REALIZING WORD WAS UNACCEPTABLE
Blue Jay first apologized for losing temper, but later addressed use of homophobic slur
It took the better part of a day, but Kevin Pillar eventually figured out what he needed to say.
The use of a homophobic slur — the Toronto centre-fielder has acknowledged he did just that on Wednesday night — is an absolute liability offence. Anger, embarrassment, the frustration of losing three in a row to the freaking Braves, none of it excuses using that epithet in that space: the middle of a baseball diamond in a game watched by hundreds of thousands of fans.
Language matters, and whatever the fallout of the Pillar incident, it’s these kind of things that slowly make change happen. If someone learns something from the outcry, that’s useful.
Pillar did his learning on the fly. In the immediate aftermath of Wednesday night’s incident in Atlanta, when he shouted the homophobic F-word at Braves pitcher Jason Motte, Pillar apologized for being immature and stupid and said he was “a competitive guy and (it was) the heat of the moment.”
It was a perfectly acceptable response when explaining why he had overreacted to the quick pitch that Motte employed to strike Pillar out, and to make amends for the subsequent clearing of benches that happened when he yelled at the Atlanta pitcher.
It was an unacceptable response to the use of a homophobic slur on the playing field, while representing his team and his sport. Pillar’s statements on Wednesday night, while contrite and sincere, never addressed what he said, making it appear as though he was primarily apologetic for losing his temper.
By Thursday afternoon, he had at least identified the missing part of that apology. He said on his Twitter account that he had “helped extend the use of a word that has no place in baseball, in sports, or anywhere in society today.” Pillar said he was “completely and utterly embarrassed” and apologized to everyone involved, including “the LBGTQ community for the lack of respect I displayed.”
Not long after that, the Blue Jays released a statement that said the organization was “extremely disappointed” by the comments Pillar made on Wednesday night, and it also apologized to everyone, including the gay community.
The team announced on Thursday that Pillar would be suspended for two games, a decision that met with the approval of Major League Baseball and the players’ association.
This will, presumably, not entirely be the end of it. Nor should it be.
It feels stupid to even point this out, but for those who think a homophobic slur can be explained away by saying the person who shouted it didn’t really mean it like that, would such a defence still be offered if the slur was derogatory toward African-Americans or Latinos? We are at the point now where it’s generally accepted that racial insults that were casually used in my grandparents’ generation are unacceptable. We are not yet at that point with homophobic slurs.
It’s important to note these changes don’t happen quickly, but over time, as society adjusts and phrases that were once commonplace are understood for the hurt they cause. I’m in my early 40s, and I cannot remember a time when people would use racial slurs without knowing that they were charged with meaning. No one of my vintage jokingly called someone the N-word and assumed it was harmless.
But it wasn’t that long ago derogatory terms for gay men were tossed around as everyday insults. It still happens, obviously, but there is a better understanding today of the hurt such words cause than there was, say, 20 years ago, when I was in university. I’ll admit I was too slow to stop using those terms in private, among friends. There’s no excuse for that, either.
But we are long past the point where uttering them in public, and especially in a highly public situation, can be excused.
The Blue Jays, sadly, have some experience in this regard. When former shortstop Yunel Escobar played a game in 2012 with a Spanish homophobic insult written on his eye black, he was suspended for three games and gave a depressing news conference at which he apologized for his actions while at the same time saying he didn’t really understand why anyone was mad.
The former GM and former manager both gave much weight to Escobar’s explanation that the slur — “maricon” — had a different meaning among Latino players, and Escobar even offered the I-have-friends-who-are-gay defence.
Five years later, there is no such wiggle room for Pillar. To his credit, the excuses he offered for his outburst — the frustration of losing, the heat of the moment stuff — now can be seen as excuses for losing his temper, and just that. He didn’t try to say that he didn’t understand the meaning of the slur he used, and he didn’t try to pretend he didn’t mean it, you know, that way.
It’s been almost 20 years since then-Braves pitcher John Rocker listed “queers” among the reasons he wouldn’t want to live in New York, and more than 10 years since then-White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen called a writer the homophobic F-word. And six years, if we’re counting, since Kobe Bryant used the same word on an NBA referee.
Every time, there are people lining up to say that it’s no big deal. Kevin Pillar, at least, was not one of them.