Editor's note: For those
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Updated:
June 7, 2001
TOP OF
THE WEEK JASON WHITLOCK, 810 WHB, KANSAS CITY
AKA "Big
Sexy," Jason Whitlock (pictured) invited Outsports co-founder Cyd Zeigler onto his show, "Jason Whitlock's Neighborhood," Thursday morning to talk about gays in professional sports. Yes, this is the same Jason Whitlock,
a Kansas City Star columnist. who used the famous "Bledsoe=Gay" sign at a Patriots-Chiefs game several years ago to retaliate against raucous fans.
This is a kinder, gentler Whitlock who talked with Cyd for an hour about the good, and the bad, of coming out in professional sports. And, while Whitlock tried again and again to get Cyd to out various athletes, most of the time was spent talking
seriously about the issue that has gripped the sports world since Out Magazine editor Brendan Lemon's now-famous column. Whitlock went out on a limb addressing this unpopular issue, and for that Outsports thanks him.
BOTTOM OF
THE WEEK UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA
University of Florida Athletic Department It's just a shame when one bad season sinks a good coach. At the University of Florida, baseball coach Andy Lopez was fired following a "disappointing" 26-20 season and a trip to the NCAA Regionals. Lopez's winning percentage at Florida was .636, and he led them to the College World Series in 1996 and 1998.
His lifetime record as a collegiate head coach is 678-411-6 including a National Championship with Pepperdine in 1992.
HIGHLIGHTS OF
THE WEEK
CUBS TARGET THEIR GAY FANS
In what may be a first, the Cubs this season agreed to publish 10 full-page display ads in the Chicago Free Press. The ads started in February and to date nine have run.
The Free Press trumpets the advertising deal as the first between an American male pro sports team and an exclusively gay publication. Some teams in the Women's National Basketball Association have marketed directly to lesbians, but no other examples have been found of a men's team targeting the gay market.
``It was an easy no-brainer,'' said Annie Kleiser, manager of special events and entertainment for the Cubs. Wrigley Field is ``smack dab in the middle of the gay neighborhood.''
The driving force behind securing the deal was Free Press advertising representative Bill Gubrud, 28, a Windy City native and longtime Cub diehard. ``If you advertise to the gay market, people become more comfortable going into an establishment that accepts them,'' he said.
Gubrud's approach was simple: Convince the Cubs it made good business sense to advertise to the gay and lesbian market.
Wrigley Field, home of the Cubs, borders Chicago's ``Boy's Town,'' a concentrated gay strip filled with bars, clubs and restaurants, and home to an estimated 40,000 or so gays and lesbians. Since the service workers at these businesses work nights and the Cubs play 62 day games a year, Gubrud reasoned, this was a market waiting to be tapped. Providing data about the high disposal income of many gays and lesbians also factored in.
Kleiser finally convinced her bosses with the Cubs to say yes, and the deal was reached this past winter. Gubrud would not say how much the Cubs paid for the ads, and Kleiser would only say ``they gave us a great deal.''
The Cubs' decision was not fueled by any sense of making a social statement, Kleiser said. Simply, before the Free Press presented its data ``we never thought of it -- and I live in the neighborhood,'' she said.
The team's outreach has been a big hit among gay fans, said Gubrud, and will extend even further on June 23 during a promotion called ``Out at the Ball Game.''
On that day, when the Cubs play the Milwaukee Brewers, 2,000 gays and lesbians will have a section of Wrigley to call their own. The Free Press had little trouble selling 2,000 tickets to the promotion once the ads started to appear, Gubrud said. Local bars and some charities purchased blocks of tickets. People who could not get their hands on the ``gay tickets'' have bought some elsewhere at Wrigley that day just to get inside, he said.
``The idea is to go have fun,'' Gubrud said, adding that the game is the day before Chicago's annual gay pride parade (in keeping with the baseball theme, former umpire Dave Pallone is the parade's grand marshal). ``You can show your pride at the one place you normally can't show it.''
The crowd in the gay section will certainly be diverse. Bars that bought tickets, Gubrud said, included those geared to leathermen, circuit boys, older men, yuppies and the dance crowd. Throw in purchases by a strip club and a bathhouse and you'll have a wide range of gay archetypes amongst the ivy-covered walls.
Gubrud credits the Cubs with being very helpful and supportive of the event, going so far as to allow a local singer he recommended to sing the National Anthem that day.
With the surprising Cubs in first place (this is a franchise that hasn't won a World Series since 1908 and not even appeared in one since 1945) and with the success of the ad campaign Gubrud is feeling proud. After all he straddles both worlds. ``I'm a diehard Cub fan and I'm gay.''
BASEBALL It's a victory for gay superheroes everywhere. Oakland A's pitcher Barry Zito is the focus of ESPN The Magazine's The Jump section in the next issue. It is a series of ten questions that Zito, his coach, and his mom answer. One of the questions was "Favorite Cartoon Character" - to which Zito answered, Gary and Ace, the animated gay dynamic duo from Saturday Night Live.
The Seattle Mariners are making believers out of all of us. After losing a star a year for the last three years, the Mariners have now built the best team in baseball who, as of Thursday, were riding a 14-game win streak, the longest in the American League in seven years. At 46-12, the Mariners are already 17 1/2 games ahead of second place Oakland and Anaheim. That record is the second-best 58 game start since 1900.
NBA Game 1 of the NBA Finals was a classic. While Allen Iverson was dazzling in the 76ers 107-101 win at Los Angeles, scoring 48 points, it was the entire team that won the game. Coach Larry Brown was masterful, using guys like Raja Bell and Matt Geiger to rip open holes in the Lakers defense. The Lakers threw everything at the 76ers that they could: double-teams, Shaq pounding the paint, well-placed timeouts, and a five point deficit with two minutes to go in overtime. And the Sixers still won. Merry Christmas, David Stern.
AKA "Big
Sexy," Jason Whitlock (pictured) invited Outsports co-founder Cyd Zeigler onto his show, "Jason Whitlock's Neighborhood," Thursday morning to talk about gays in professional sports. Yes, this is the same Jason Whitlock,
a Kansas City Star columnist. who used the famous "Bledsoe=Gay" sign at a Patriots-Chiefs game several years ago to retaliate against raucous fans.