Toronto Blue Jays Manager John Gibbons refuses to apologize for saying his players should wear dresses because of a new baseball rule on sliding.
"Maybe we'll come out and wear dresses tomorrow. Maybe that's what everybody's looking for," Gibbons said Tuesday after the Blue Jays lost the go-ahead run to Tampa Bay when a replay review invoked a new rule limiting how a runner can slide into second base. The rule is intended as a player safety measure.
After Gibbons took heat for his comments on social media, he refused to back down.
"It was meant as a little humor," he told reporters in his office before Wednesday's game. "My mom, my wife and my daughter found it kind of funny and they know me. I do think the world needs to lighten up a little bit."
"Like I said, if it doesn't offend my mother, my daughter and my wife — they've got a great understanding of life. … I was trying to inject a little humor into kind of a tense situation. That's kind of who I am."
Gibbons did not make the dresses comment to inject humor into the situation. He was pissed after the new rule cost his team a crucial run and his words were clearly meant to suggest that baseball had gotten soft, i.e., feminine. It is clearly a sexist remark that suggests female athletes aren't as strong or tough as men.
It's also not much of a joke, since this lament has been made forever by men whenever new rules are seen as "softening" a sport. It's not the most offensive thing anyone has said but his "lighten up" comment shows he doesn't get it.
