Gay Cardinals Minor Leaguer Quit Baseball After Claiming Teammates Said Homosexuals Should Be Killed
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- A former St. Louis Cardinals minor league player has revealed he quit baseball after teammates talked about ways to kill gay people.
Pitcher Tyler Dunnington, who is gay, was a 28th-round pick by the Cardinals in the 2014 MLB Draft. Dunnington told OutSports.com he was closeted at the time the comments were made.
"I was also one of the unfortunate closeted gay athletes who experienced years of homophobia in the sport I loved. I was able to take most of it with a grain of salt but towards the end of my career I could tell it was affecting my relationships with people, my performance and my overall happiness," Dunnington said.
While in college, Dunnington pitched for Skagit Valley College, College of Southern Idaho and Colorado Mesa College. OutSports.com reported that Dunnington would hear homophobic language in the locker room, with a coach even making a cruel comment in reference to the murder of Matthew Shepard – a 21-year-old gay man who was tortured and killed in October 1998 in Laramie, Wyoming.
"We kill gay people in Wyoming," the college coach said, according to OutSports.com.
Dunnington said he also heard similar comments from teammates with the rookie-level Gulf Coast League Cardinals in 2014. According to OutSports.com, Dunnington heard two teammates question another teammate who had a gay brother how he could be friends with a gay person and then mentioned ways to kill gay people.
"I experienced both coaches and players make remarks on killing gay people during my time in baseball, and each comment felt like a knife to my heart. I was miserable in a sport that used to give me life, and ultimately I decided I needed to hang up my cleats for my own sanity," Dunnington said.
He retired after one minor league season where he went 4-2 with two saves and a 3.09 ERA.
The Cardinals organization told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in a statement that it is taking Dunnington's allegations "very seriously."
"This is very disappointing, and our hope is that every player, staff member and employee feels they are treated equally and fairly," Cardinals general manager John Mozeliak told the Post-Dispatch. "Given the nature of these allegations, I will certainly look into this further as well as speak with Billy Bean of the commissioner's office for further assistance on this matter. … We will take this very seriously."
Dunnington is hoping to get back into baseball in a front-office role as he attended the MLB Diversity Business Summit in Phoenix last week.
"After a little over a year of being gone from the game, I've come to realize I thought I was choosing happiness over being miserable. That is not necessarily the case," Dunnington told OutSports.com. "My passion still lies in baseball, and removing myself from the game didn't change that. Most of the greatest memories I have are with this sport. After gaining acceptance from my friends and family, I realized I didn't have to quit baseball to find happiness."
Last August, David Denson, a first baseman in the Milwaukee Brewers organization, became the first openly active gay player in baseball.
