Eireann Dolan, a speechwriter who has two moms and is dating Oakland A’s pitcher Sean Doolittle, is offering to buy the tickets of season ticketholders who do not want to attend the team’s LGBT Pride Night in June.
Dolan wrote at her blog, Thank You Based Ball, that when the team announced its first Pride event, many season ticketholders attempted to sell their tickets for that night. She then laid out her idea:
Dear season ticket holders who wish to sell their tickets for LGBT Pride Night,
Everybody is entitled to their own beliefs and as long as nobody is getting hurt, I’m happy. I also can’t stop you from selling your tickets. I won’t tell you that you are wrong or that you are not allowed to think or act that way. . . .
If you’d like to sell your tickets to June 17th’s LGBT Pride Night game, I will buy them from you at face value. As many as I can. No judgments. No questions asked.
From there, I will donate any tickets I purchase to the Bay Area Youth Center’s Our Space community for LGBTQ youth.
Several days later, she updated her post to say that Doolittle had agreed to match any tickets she purchased, and that the two of them have started a GoFundMe account for donations to fill the stands at the game, and will match donations up to $3000.
It’s a slick, pointed, but nonconfrontational response to homophobia. I also love her whole blog post, in which she not only refers to her parents as her “hella gay moms,” but describes them thus:
My biological mom Kathy and her partner Elise (who grew up in the Bay Area) are both die-hard A’s fans as well as super gay. Like, they’re so gay for each other that they’ve fostered a long-term loving relationship likely no different from any heterosexual loving relationships you’ve seen or been a part of.
I’m a Boston Red Sox fan myself, but my spouse grew up supporting the A’s (although she’s loath to admit it here in Massachusetts), so I feel a certain in-law pride in watching this all play out. Go read Dolan’s whole post to hear more about why this game is tailor-made for her moms, and marvel that we’ve made it through another winter to reach the start of baseball season already.
