For those of you who do not know, Billy Van Raaphorst is one of those rare and courageous baseball game officials who admitted to be gay. In sports, we oftentimes witness frustrations of coaches and sometimes fights between players or referees. But this is something different that it made a huge noise on gay rights. Gay umpire Billy Van Raaphorst had experienced this just last week when he showed up at a minor baseball league to do his job. He was not expecting that due to his sexuality, he would be insulted by the manager of the Edmonton Capitals, Brent Bowers.
According to reports, Brent Bowers shouted at Billy Van Raaphorst telling him the following quoted lines
“You know what I heard? I heard you are a (expletive) faggot. The rumour from several managers and people at the league is that you are a fag … I ought to kick your ass, you faggot.”
Being a manager of a team does not give you any rights to judge other people based on their character or sexuality. Bowers only showed that his burst was basically due to his hatred on homosexuals which resulted to negative reactions from the crowd specially those who have witnessed the event. Because of this, Bowers got suspended for the rest of the season and was finded $5,000 USD. After facing so many people reacting to his bad actions, he decided to resign.
The actions of Bowers have violated certain rules of the sport and must be dealt accordingly to show baseball fans that the committee does not tolerate such reactions. The minor league baseball association also added that the contributions of umpires to the game is of high value and importance for both teams, players and fans as well. With this, they should be treated with respect.
Billy Van Raaphorst is just one of the many sports officials who have faced the anger of team managers and coaches. They are often times faced with the frustrations of team coaches due to bad calls but hey, we are all just humans and we cannot be perfect in any aspect of our lives or career. Everyone makes honest mistakes and that is a given. We just have to accept that fact and hope that they will make up for the wrong decision that they made.
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Angela Goings says:
He was not expecting that due to his sexuality, he would be insulted by Brent Bowers.