Classic PR bungle - someone says something bad, org does the wrong thing, waffles around, takes a ton of flack, org belatedly does the right thing too late for it to do anything but make them look unprincipled and opportunistic.
Glad he's gone. Better late than never, but won't do much for the Jays' image.
Really great piece, Andrew. This whole situation has been bungled from the start, but the decision to have this guy catch the first pitch is so gross. They could have just let him toil away as the 24th man after this, and let the story slowly die. It would be a shitty outcome, and the Blue Jays would be pretty cowardly to do it, but to now CENTER HIM on a night that's SOLE FOCUS should be on the LGBT+ community is beyond reproach.
I hope whoever is supposed to throw the first pitch throws it into the fucking outfield
Thanks! Yeah, I'm glad they came to the right conclusion here eventually — I guess you can only humiliate your boss so many times — but the whole response/strategy/process raises questions!
Jun 9, 2023·edited Jun 9, 2023Liked by Andrew Stoeten
I feel like Bass is getting softball questions from the media and STILL flubbing the answers.
Questions I would have liked to see include, "You said the video aligns with your personal beliefs. Do you think gay/LGBTQ+ people are demonic? And what does that mean - do you literally think they are being controlled by demons, or perhaps are in fact demons themselves?", "Do you think it's evil to teach children that it's ok to be LGBTQ+?", "You have said your views are informed by your faith. How do you square the hateful rhetoric in the video you say aligns with your personal beliefs with Jesus' instruction to love your neighbour as yourself? Do you think calling people "evil" who are just trying to live their lives is an act of love?".
Precisely. You beat me by 14 minutes to make this exact point. Some journalists have been pretty tough in print - Chisolm and Ashbourne both called strongly for the Jays to immediately cut him. But so far no one has pushed him directly to own up to the claims that he advanced and then subsequently stood by.
I will say, I’ve heard enough fundamentalist Christians talk about this that I can tell you, they actually do have the incredibly fucked up belief that telling gay people they’re evil IS an act of love. When they say things like “love is truth”, or that you can’t love someone unless you’re willing to tell them the “truth”, that’s what that is. That’s why Bass doesn’t think sharing that video was hurtful - he thinks he’s doing the gay community a service by calling out what he believes is sinful or evil behaviour.
I guess on the bright side, Bass doesn’t think he’ll catch gay by touching the same baseball as someone from the “Pride community”.
I don’t expect him to change his well-entrenched beliefs overnight. But I totally agree that he has to at least try to be less obtuse here than to believe what he did wasn’t hurtful or harmful to people whose very existence has always been threatened. He’s clearly learned nothing, and beyond having a desire to keep his job, doesn’t seem interested in learning anything. The Jays should have DFA’d him from the hop.
Thank you for writing this article. Always enjoy your writing but this needed to be written.
The decision-making during this absolute fucking debacle looks like it was handled by a giant boardroom full of terrified idiots.
Holy Shit - Bass DFA'd !
https://twitter.com/BlueJays/status/1667217605990465550
Classic PR bungle - someone says something bad, org does the wrong thing, waffles around, takes a ton of flack, org belatedly does the right thing too late for it to do anything but make them look unprincipled and opportunistic.
Glad he's gone. Better late than never, but won't do much for the Jays' image.
Really great piece, Andrew. This whole situation has been bungled from the start, but the decision to have this guy catch the first pitch is so gross. They could have just let him toil away as the 24th man after this, and let the story slowly die. It would be a shitty outcome, and the Blue Jays would be pretty cowardly to do it, but to now CENTER HIM on a night that's SOLE FOCUS should be on the LGBT+ community is beyond reproach.
I hope whoever is supposed to throw the first pitch throws it into the fucking outfield
> I hope whoever is supposed to throw the first pitch throws it into the fucking outfield
That would have been awesome, I'm almost sad he's gone so we can't see that XD
Thanks! Yeah, I'm glad they came to the right conclusion here eventually — I guess you can only humiliate your boss so many times — but the whole response/strategy/process raises questions!
I feel like Bass is getting softball questions from the media and STILL flubbing the answers.
Questions I would have liked to see include, "You said the video aligns with your personal beliefs. Do you think gay/LGBTQ+ people are demonic? And what does that mean - do you literally think they are being controlled by demons, or perhaps are in fact demons themselves?", "Do you think it's evil to teach children that it's ok to be LGBTQ+?", "You have said your views are informed by your faith. How do you square the hateful rhetoric in the video you say aligns with your personal beliefs with Jesus' instruction to love your neighbour as yourself? Do you think calling people "evil" who are just trying to live their lives is an act of love?".
Precisely. You beat me by 14 minutes to make this exact point. Some journalists have been pretty tough in print - Chisolm and Ashbourne both called strongly for the Jays to immediately cut him. But so far no one has pushed him directly to own up to the claims that he advanced and then subsequently stood by.
100%. He should be getting these questions.
I will say, I’ve heard enough fundamentalist Christians talk about this that I can tell you, they actually do have the incredibly fucked up belief that telling gay people they’re evil IS an act of love. When they say things like “love is truth”, or that you can’t love someone unless you’re willing to tell them the “truth”, that’s what that is. That’s why Bass doesn’t think sharing that video was hurtful - he thinks he’s doing the gay community a service by calling out what he believes is sinful or evil behaviour.
Great piece bud
Thanks!!
I guess on the bright side, Bass doesn’t think he’ll catch gay by touching the same baseball as someone from the “Pride community”.
I don’t expect him to change his well-entrenched beliefs overnight. But I totally agree that he has to at least try to be less obtuse here than to believe what he did wasn’t hurtful or harmful to people whose very existence has always been threatened. He’s clearly learned nothing, and beyond having a desire to keep his job, doesn’t seem interested in learning anything. The Jays should have DFA’d him from the hop.
Totally agree