Yunel Escobar’s Apology Was Almost As Offensive As His Eye Black

Earlier today, almost immediately after Yunel Escobar was handed his three-game suspension for writing a homophobic slur (“tu ere maricon,” which means “you are a faggot”) on his eye black on Saturday, I wrote an article about said punishment. I was a little uncomfortable writing it, for a couple reasons. Firstly, I don’t speak Spanish, and there was some debate among those in the media over what the term really meant, or could have meant. I didn’t want to write anything incorrect.

Secondly, there weren’t two sides to the story. Escobar did a stupid, careless thing, and he was suspended. That’s it. He acted like an idiot – an offensive one – and the Blue Jays dealt with it in the same way many other clubs would have. Was this one incident a sign of a larger pandemic within the game? Not really. It was just one loser, and yet another example that solidified his reputation as a problem child.

But, after watching his supposed apology, and the Toronto Blue Jays’ whatever-that-was, I can’t say I’ve ever had my intelligence more insulted.

I can honestly say now that baseball and its coaches, players, and management – or, at least, just the Toronto Blue Jays – are as blindly insensitive and possibly homophobic as we could have imagined.

He seemed to believe that the only crime he committed was getting caught. He seemed to believe that what he wrote was wrong, but that whatever he believes or continues to say outside the ballpark is just fine. He looked like he was waiting for an apology from us, not the other way around.

“It’s a word without a meaning,” he said, of maricon. Oh, but wait, it actually does have a meaning. It means “faggot”.

You know, when Philadelphia Flyers forward Wayne Simmonds came under hot water for using the English form of the word in a game last year, nobody denied its offensiveness or its meaning. Nobody distanced themselves from what he did, or tried to deny that it happened, or that it always happens. They admitted that it was used often, and their seemed to be a general understanding that the game of hockey had a naturally homophobic underbelly that needed to be fixed.

Was it glazed over? Yes. Was it handled properly? Probably not. But, nobody tried to fool the guys asking the questions, or the audience they were serving. Nobody was that dumb.

Well, on Tuesday, Yunel Escobar certainly was.