Cincinnati Reds radio announcer Marty Brennaman (three Ns, two As) is surprisingly not in hot water after firing off a implicitly gay pejorative while speaking at a fundraising banquet last weekend. Brennaman, 68, is renown for speaking his mind–even being critical of the baseball team that pays him–so no one was surprised when he spoke his mind in front of a gaggle of Marshall baseball boosters.
On Saturday night during Marshall University’s preseason baseball banquet and fundraiser at the Cam Henderson Center, Brennaman – the keynote speaker – determined that Marshall’s president must be “queer” for softball since the university managed to open a $2.5 million softball facility in March 2008, but baseball is still traveling for home games.
Brennaman received “multiple ovations” for his Q-bomb-infused speech, and then sorta apologized for it. Party foul? What say you, Jim Buzinski of OutSports?
Using “queer” when discussing softball is an odd choice of words, and I will give Brennaman the benefit of the doubt that he did not mean it in a homophobic sense. But the traditional definition of queer means worthless, questionable or weird, so the announcer was still taking a shot at Marshall’s president.
Good to finally see someone recognize a distinction between “homophobia” and “homographs“. And by the way, that Marshall president, Stephen Kopp, has yet to make his feelings felt on the issue, perhaps because he was too busy at his favorite interstate rest stop with the Daft Punk blaring on his iPod.
