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Report: 93 Oilers had two openly gay players

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by BDC99, Dec 26, 2013.

  1. Starman

    Starman Well-Known Member

    You know, for fun sometimes I read books about sports in the decades long, long ago.

    SOMETIMES, reading those stories about guys who have been in the Halls of Fame for 50 years or more, a codeword here or there sets off a little lightbulb. "Awkward around girls," "kept to himself," never married until their 40s, married briefly then divorced, etc etc.

    Taken on their own of course none of these 'clues' mean anything, but who really knows. I suspect at some point, evidence will come out that some 'Mount Olympus'-level Hall of Famer in one of the major sports was gay. Will that really make all that much difference?
     
  2. Steak Snabler

    Steak Snabler Well-Known Member

    Here's the transcript of an ESPN OTL report from 1998 on gay athletes. Ernest Givins was interviewed live on the show:

    http://espn.go.com/page2/tvlistings/otl1998_gay_athletes.html

     
  3. buckweaver

    buckweaver Active Member

    Well, there's always Bill Tilden, widely considered to be the greatest men's tennis player of the first half of the 20th century. A 10-time major singles champion and one of the legends of the first "Golden Era" of sports with Ruth, Dempsey, Grange and Jones in the 1920s.

    He was a "lifelong bachelor" (there's those code words again) and, in the 1940s, he was arrested twice for alleged relationships with teenage boys. Rumors about his homosexuality have circulated for nearly 100 years.
     
  4. Steak Snabler

    Steak Snabler Well-Known Member

    George Brett was widely rumored to be gay. He didn't get married til age 39.

    And, of course, Sandy Koufax.
     
  5. MileHigh

    MileHigh Moderator Staff Member

    Also did time in jail, if memory serves me.
     
  6. Diego Marquez

    Diego Marquez Member

    It's awful that I saw the thread title and my first thought was ... two guys in Edmonton? The NFL Oilers are now so far in the past and that's a shame. Titans is a stupid name.
    As for George Brett, gay, straight, married or single, the "I crapped myself" bit is the best thing ever.
     
  7. Starman

    Starman Well-Known Member

    That's hardly news -- it was certainly hinted at in biography stuff as long ago as the 60s/70s.
     
  8. Double J

    Double J Active Member

    He didn't say it was news. He pointed out it's been rumoured for nearly 100 years.
     
  9. Joe Williams

    Joe Williams Well-Known Member

    Was working in a newsroom when news of Paul Lynde's passing came over the wire.
    The obit ended with the line "Lynde never married."
    Shocked. SHOCKED.
     
  10. Starman

    Starman Well-Known Member

    It's also been noted that despite all the hooting and howling over the supposed "20,000" figure, Wilt Chamberlain was never seriously romantically linked with anyone, and never once faced a publicized paternity suit.
     
  11. Steak Snabler

    Steak Snabler Well-Known Member

    There was a CBS TV show in the 1950s called "Person to Person," in which Edward R. Murrow would interview celebrities live via satellite from their homes. He interviewed Liberace once.

    Liberace is showing off his home, which is ensconced with elaborate artwork, tapestries, furs and sequins. Murrow then asks him something along the lines of "do you think you'll ever settle down and get married?"

    Liberace played it off with something like, "oh, I don't know. I just haven't met the right person yet," when all the while he couldn't have appeared more gay if he'd had a neon sign with the words "I'm a homosexual" flashing above his head.

    Can't find the clip, but I think it appears at one point in the George Clooney film "Good Night and Good Luck."
     
  12. wicked

    wicked Well-Known Member

    Don't the two players being mentioned here deserve people to not speculate about their sexuality?
     
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