Honestly, I think it will happen in baseball sooner than in football or basketball. The reason I say that is because I think there is less of a connection to religion in baseball. The religious roots are a lot deeper in basketball and football… I think baseball players are more open minded.
The baseball players I have known from growing up — I’ve known guys like Pat Burrell — just my interaction with the baseball players and them being on the road and stuff, their lives are a lot different. Whereas, the football guys, we have chapel every Sunday, no matter where we are — there are a lot of religious things going on, whether it’s chapel or Mass or whatever religious group you’re a part of, we have something for you. We do prayers before and after every game. I don’t know if baseball is like that, but I don’t think that it is.
I played baseball for 12 years growing up as a kid. So I don’t know. I could be wrong. But I just felt that they were a bit more open-minded and not so tied to religion as much as football and basketball.
Baltimore Raven linebacker and LGBT advocate Brendon Ayanbadejo, hedging his bets on which major-league sport will have an out player first, to USA Today.
JAW
I Think that he is totally on the mark with this… Many teams have a Gay Day which most Basketball and football teams do not.
Plus the racial makeup of Baseball is more diverse… With White players being a majority then Hispanic following and black being a very small %
At the start of the 2012 season, the total percentage of players of color in the MLB was 38.2 percent.
The opening day rosters were 61.2 percent white, 27.3 percent Latino, 8.8
percent African American, 1.9 percent Asian, 0.1 percent Native American or Native Alaskan, and 0.1 Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander.
For Football…
The racial demographics of the NFL: 31% White/European, 67% Black/African, 1% Hispanic, 1% Asian; 99% National, 1% International.
and Basketball
Racial Demographics of the NBA: 76 percent of the player are African American, 20 percent are white, Latino are 3, Asian 1 percent
Being a Gay Man will become part of the diversity