Hot Take: Texas Rangers, The Pride of Baseball

Happy June to all, particularly as we welcome the annual tradition of this month: piling on the Texas Rangers for spurning the rest of the league during “Pride month.”

We can’t just let baseball teams play baseball. No. They must be dragged into our cultural and political fight. It isn’t enough that 29 of the 30 Major League Baseball teams have given in to such madness. Any straggler must be dragged along kicking and screaming, if necessary.

Here’s one of many breathless headlines on the issue: “The Texas Rangers are frustrating LGBTQ+ advocates as the only MLB team without a Pride Night.”

Seriously, I ask. Who cares?

One of the LGBT activists they quote in the piece says, referring to engagement the team has done with his organization, “To say that the Rangers aren’t doing anything for the community, well, they have. 

“But the hill that they are choosing to stake themselves out on is no Pride Night.”

So, let it lie!

To the Associated Press’s credit, they did talk to a Rangers fan supportive of the team’s decision, who said, “We don’t want the political stuff shoved down our throats one way or the other, left or right. We’re coming out here to have a good time with friends or family and let it be.”

Couldn’t have said it better myself.

But this shouldn’t be a two-day story, let alone one that we’re forced to revisit every year by the pearl-clutching media. 

(And how many of those writing these articles actually watch baseball? Probably not many!)

I could write a whole thing about how absurd it is to inflate a set of opinions so clearly held only by a small minority of people to the point where it’s treated like a majority position. But I’ll just stick to the narrower point.

You can tell a lot about a media outlet by what they think is worth a story. And this just shouldn’t make the cut. 

At The Texan, we have better judgment than this because our team isn’t indoctrinated in the political left’s orthodoxy like the vast majority of the legacy media.

The Texas Rangers just won the World Series for the first time in their history last year. While I haven’t cared much for the sport since the strike in 1994, my husband is a diehard fan. And he’d prefer to bask in that championship without being lectured to politically. Thankfully the Rangers haven’t jumped on that bandwagon.

Americans already get enough of that in our day jobs and communities. At least let us have baseball.