Major League Baseball team the Texas Rangers have remained the only organization in the league to not host a Pride night, gay pride-themed game, or any other promotion of the sort.<\/p>\n
In fact, according to Breitbart, the team has not hosted any sort of celebration of the kind since 2003. That year, the team invited several \u201cLGBTQ+ groups\u201d to the stadium, however the event was reportedly not officially marketed and was met with protests. That was the last time anything in the realm of such a celebration was held.<\/p>\n
Media outlets, such as the Dallas Morning News, which has recirculated a 2021 article on the topic, seemingly conduct routine check-ins with the Rangers\u2019 organization each season. In fact, the 2021 piece rehashes comments Rangers COO Neil Leibman gave to the paper in 2020.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith respect to Pride Night, we reached out to the Resource Center and said what can we do internally,\u201d Leibman began. \u201cWe immediately adopted some changes they suggested to be more inclusive in hiring practices. I think that\u2019s more meaningful than just saying \u2018OK, we had a Pride Night.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
The article also noted that Rafael McDonnell, a liaison between pro sports teams and the LGBTQ Resource Center, attempted to pressure the Texas ball club into hosting a celebratory night. McDonnell scheduled a probing meeting with the MLB\u2019s ambassador for inclusion in Dallas, which then led to a meeting with the Texas team itself in October 2019. The activist reportedly showed two Texas Rangers staffers how other teams were promoting gay pride at ball parks and with merchandising, but the efforts appear to have fallen short to this day.<\/p>\n
Despite the team adjusting its hiring practices, McDonnell was still unsatisfied and said \u201cI think you can do both.\u201d<\/p>\n
Outsports also reported in August 2022 that while the Texas Rangers were a \u201cPlatinum Corporate Sponsor\u201d for the \u201cGay Softball World Series\u201d in Dallas that year, McDonnell was still bothered that the organization did not and doesn\u2019t \u201cpublicly acknowledge\u201d their efforts.<\/p>\n
As well, the Dallas Morning Observer managed to connect the team\u2019s lack of World Series Championships with their lack of Pride nights in 2022. \u201cZero prizes. No pride,\u201d the outlet wrote. \u201c[After] another lousy, losing year on the field, the front office will stubbornly retain its reputation as the last homophobic holdout.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite this airtight correlation, the Rangers have managed to be the second best team overall for the 2023 season at the time of this publication despite not breaking their \u201choldout.\u201d<\/p>\n
The first-ever Pride game held in the MLB was by the Chicago Cubs in 2001.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Major League Baseball team the Texas Rangers have remained the only organization in the league to not host a Pride night, gay pride-themed game, or any other… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1414,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1413","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n