Rising from the ashes

Following up from yesterday.

http://www.680news.com/2017/05/18/pillar-suspended-2-games-yelling-homophobic-slur/

In a nutshell, he's been suspended for two games and appears embarrassed and sorry for using a homophobic slur.  I understand that he felt it was "in the heat of the moment", but that's a word you should never reach for unless you're compiling a bundle of sticks!  

I'm not ready to burn my Kevin Pillar bobble head in effigy, but rather watch, and see what becomes of this.  He apologized to the pitcher, he apologized to the other team, but most importantly he's apologized to the LGBTQ community who are most affected by this.  People screw up, and hopefully, he's learned that words do matter and he should take such horrific words out of his vocabulary.

He can learn and grow from this, a LOT of people (based on the reaction online) can learn and grow from this.  

When your hero falls

http://www.cbc.ca/sports/baseball/mlb/kevin-pillar-blue-jays-1.4121088

Over the past 3 years, LML and I have become big Blue Jays fans and our favourite player is #11 Kevin Pillar.  We enjoyed ourselves on our annual Mothers Day game, watching KP bang out a solo home run at the bottom of the 9^th with 2 out to break the tie and win the game.  YAAAAAAAY.

Driving to work this morning, I heard that in the “heat of the moment” he hurled a homophobic slur f----t at the pitcher for the Atlanta Braves.  My jaw hit my lap and my heart sank to my stomach.  All I hear on the radio was “I’m a competitive guy” “it was the heat of the moment” “I won’t let this define me” “we need to move on”.  I was heartbroken.  He was making excuses, and it didn’t sound apologetic at all.  It’s slightly better in the article, he does say he’ll reach out to the pitcher to apologize, but he needs to more.  I believe he understands what he did was wrong, but I don’t think he realizes HOW wrong.  It’s just as bad as a racial or religious slur.  You’re degrading someone for simply who they are.  I hope he really opens himself up to the experiences of those discriminated against solely because who they love and learn what he said is horrific.  I need to see more than one quick article about him moving on.  He has the opportunity to grow from this.  I really hope he does, because if this simply “goes away” I’m going to stop cheering for someone like that. 

I don’t want my team to be the league villains, but they’re heading there in a hurry.  Looks like we’ll have to switch to basketball in the 6ix!  Goodness knows we’ll never be hockey fans here.  I really hope the League punishes him for this.