THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

Hopefully this gives Marty Brodeur the courage. Go Rangers!

I played hurling once - lots of potential carry-over from hockey.  It was interesting because they kept trying to get me to shoot left-handed.  And I said I knew that I would shoot right-handed.  They could not accept this.

Anyways, hurling is an entirely amateur sport, so it’s not like he’s losing out on salary or endorsements.

Can anyone here compare the attitudes toward homosexuality in Ireland to the US? I presume the influence of the Catholic and Protestant Churches would skew the average opinion closer to the very right wing of America (rather than the center-right position of most Americans on this issue which is a combination of moral and visceral disapproval along with a “do what you want in the privacy of your own home” attitude).

I wouldn’t be surprised if the first openly gay active pro athlete in a major North American team sport ends up being someone who climbs through college and the minors openly as well; I know there are a few current players in D1 (although the most notable was a lacrosse player IIRC) and it seems likely that someone could be an openly gay college athlete with pro potential, who then if they deserved to be drafted on skill almost would have an implied lawsuit of armor around them, and organizations would want to give them a chance to be known as the accepting team who was able to allow this historic moment to happen.  I can see this happening in 5-10 years perhaps?  Not sure if there is enough momentum yet with acceptance of HS/college gay male athletes to happen in the next few years, and I think it would be tougher for any meaningful player to come out halfway through his career.  If there has been success to date, players tend to stick with what got them there, even if it isn’t the best idea going forward.  This is why I think a rookie with nothing to lose might end up being the first to cross this looming frontier.

How many gay professional athletes would you estimate there are in the four NA professional sports, right now?

You could estimate according to the general population, but I would think gay male athletes would be less drawn to organized sports, so it might be lower. 

Just curious ... wondering, 50 years from now, how many names will have come to light from our era?

Phil,

Richard Posner looked at rates of homosexuality in “Sex and Reason.”

The first thing to note here is that sexual preference is a continuous variable, not a binary variable. That is, there are those who solely prefer the opposite sex, those who who prefer the opposite sex but will turn to the same sex when that is their only choice (prisoners, eg), those who have bisexual orientations to various degrees, those who solely prefer the opposite sex, etc.

IIRC, Posner finds that the most convincing evidence points to around 2.5% of the population as being “real” homosexuals- ie, those who have a strong, and probably innate, preference for the same sex. If we are interested in including anyone who has had a homosexual experience, the number is higher (I think Kinsey estimated 10%). There are apparently more gay men than lesbians, and I believe that Posner’s estimates have the percent of gay men as being as high as 4% (but, possibly lower).

I think your presumption that gay males are less likely to try become pro athletes is a safe one. I also presume that there is an inverse correlation between male homosexuality and physical stature/weight (I could be wrong, but my experiences at gay bars certainly bear this out). Therefore, I wouldn’t be surprised if the number of gays in the NFL was close to zero. I’d guess you also have close to zero gays in the NBA, but that the number rises marginally as you go through MLB and NHL all the way down to soccer.

Thanks, Josh!

I actually own a copy of “Sex and Reason.” I should try reading it someday ...

Interesting about gay men possibly being lighter than straight men ... I hadn’t heard of that before.  Only one of the gay men I know or have known personally would I describe as athletically built, but that would be a sample size of maybe 6.

Here is an article form The Irish times about the response in Ireland. Which has been quite low key.
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2009/1024/1224257388519.html

and an interview with Cusack.
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/weekend/2009/1024/1224257362186.html

Ireland has changed enourmously on social issues in the last 10-15 years. Although abortion is still extremely restricted and divorce was only made legal about 10 years ago.

Hurling is an amateur sport (fastest field game in the world) with a strong rural base which tends to be quite conservative and quite catholic (I’m from county Tipperary originally which borders Cork.). But then anyone willing and able to play goalie (Cusack’s posiiton) in hurling demands respect. Cork people are so crazy about hurling they won’t care

The game is played with a ball (sliothar) the size and hardness of a baseball and the ball is hit with a stick (hurley) which is like a hockey stick but much heavier, stronger and with a rounded end. 

As a goalie Cusack has to stand in a goal about the size of a soccer goal and try and stop shots coming at him at 80mph with no padding.

james

FWIW, there have been a few players who have come out after they played in the NFL. Tuaolo, Kopay, and Simmons at the very least.  I very much doubt, that with almost 2000 current NFL players, the number of current gay players is “close to zero”.
I would not be too surprised if there were some inverse correlation between weight and homosexuality.  However, I would be shocked if this correlation were so extreme as to yield zero current NFL players.

Also, i don’t see how this thread is news.  Ian Roberts came out as gay on a much bigger stage 15 years ago in Australia.

I have absolutely no evidence for this (and if there’s evidence out there, I don’t have time to look it up right now), but I wouldn’t be so quick to assume that homosexuality among male pro athletes is significantly less than the general population. Two reasons, off the top of my head:

(1) It seems plausible that a teenager who thinks he may be gay would be drawn to pro sports--there aren’t many better ways to get to hang out with a bunch of good-looking men.
(2) There seems to be a lot of homophobia in pro sports. That, along with some of the assumptions above ("no way a football player could be gay, look at how big and macho they are") makes it much more likely that a gay player would remain closeted.

But, again, no evidence.

#9- That three NFL players (of tens of thousands) have come out does not necessarily support your intuition that there aren’t close to zero gay NFL players. It depends on what you think the incentive structure of coming out is.

If disincentives are very high and incentives very low, then you’d expect the rate of closeted gay players to be much higher than the ~.006% of total pro footballers who have come out (or whatever the real number is). This was sureley the case for much of the history of pro football.

However, I think the incentives have changed drastically over the past three decades (ie, for everyone except for active players). The disincentives have decreased as tolerance of homosexuality as risen. And the incentives have greatly risen as homosexual political activism has become forceful, aggressive movement. I’d expect the pressures on retired players to be in favor of coming out for at least the last 15-20 years.

If there are current gay NFL players, they are HIGHLY unlikely to come out while still active because of the league’s conservatism. The NFL is just too religious/homophobic for a gay player to expect to be treated fairly. This conservatism is another reason why I expect that there’s close to zero gays in the NFL- it is a large disincentive in pursuing a pro football career.