[DallasMike]

 

The "team" did not sponsor "Gay Day" but a member of the Rangers' organization did sponsor "gay day".

A sales representative has no authority to do such a thing. Do you work for a company and understand how they function? Johnson down in the Dead Letters Department in all likelihood does not have the authority to decide what he wears to work, much less declare "Gay Day" for the entire organization.

Mr. Silverman had sponsored a gay day event for another sports organization he worked for.

Wrong. The article states that "A sales representative who helped organize last year’s Gay Day for the Dallas Burn, the city’s major league soccer team, now works for the Rangers..." Mr. Silverman is not a sales representative but rather is the Vice President of Ticket Sales.

You can continue to pull the wool over your own eyes.

All I'm doing is stating the facts. You're free to invent your own.

Mr. Silverman initiated a Gay Days event during Pride Week.

Show me in the article where it says that? Have you actually read the article?

Despite your belief that it is coincidental and just an effort to sell tickets. Mr. Silverman is a homosexual activist in this regard.

I have stated that I don't the extent of involvement of the Texas Rangers, only that they did not sponsor a Gay Day. Where do you get the idea that Mr. Silverman is a homosexual activist?

There is much more money to be made in encouraging people of all demographics to come to the park every day. I am unaware of many groups that buy 1,000 tickets as a block seating section to ANY games (even the homosexual crowd here is an alliance of several homosexual organizations to get the numbers high enough to be visible).

The Rangers are perfectly happy to sell tickets to anybody and do encourage people. Oh, and Ranger CEO Mike Cramer in his Scott Wilder interview said that only 200 tickets had been sold. Looks like they're not going to have their rainbow shirts, much less a block of 1,000 seats.

This conversation with you is becoming bizarre. You don't know the facts and are inventing things out of whole cloth.

[weegee]

I do admit an error in recent posts claiming the Mr. Silverman was the "ticket guy". I had been referencing the posted excerpt, not the full article and connected the name but not the position. Mr. Silverman was not the ticket guy/sales rep. I still hold that the ticket guy initiated the deal.

Here are the players (identified by name and title where possible) and what they said:

A sales representative who helped organize last year’s Gay Day for the Dallas Burn, the city’s major league soccer team, now works for the Rangers and brought the idea for Gay Day at the Ballpark with him, according to Gil Flores, services director for the John Thomas Gay and Lesbian Community Center.

No quotes but is there any reason to dispute the claims that the Rangers' staffer (ticket guy) was proactive?

Then there was this line in the article:

The Rangers donated a suite for the organizations to meet and organize the event.

Donating a suit to help these multiple organizations buy tickets one one united group is a proactive stance on the part of the Rangers.

John Blake, senior vice president of communications for the team.

“We’re trying to get as many people as possible to the ballpark,” said Blake. The team isn’t worried that marketing toward gay fans will hurt attendance, he added.

We do not know the exact words of "marketing toward gay fans" but it does imply a pro-active stance.

Andy Silverman, the Rangers’ vice president of ticket sales.

the “sheer earning potential” of the gay community was a factor in the team’s decision to sponsor Gay Day. The gay community has tremendous buying power, and “we can’t ignore that.”

The Ballpark in Arlington has group promotions to everyone from the Jewish Community Center to the Boy Scouts, according to Silverman.

“Everyone is welcome at the ballpark,” he said.

With ticket sales down, Silverman said, the Rangers are marketing to as many people as possible.

Again we don't know the exact phrasing of "marketing to as many people as possible" but it sounds like an active outreach to draw in fans who are homosexuals (and conviently they are being drawn in on the same day).

Mack Williamson, president of the Texas Gay Rodeo Association’s Dallas chapter

said he was “very surprised” the Rangers contacted the gay community. Members of the community have tried contacting other teams, like the Cowboys and Mavericks, to no avail, he said.

There is admission that this is a different animal. Did the Gay Rodeo folk say to the Cowboys and Mavericks, "hello sir, I'd like 200 tickets" and were turned down? Most times people won't ask "what for". Someone was looking for a sweeter deal (maybe including an announcement on the scoreboard of their group).

My error in citing Mr. Silverman seems to have caused you to disregard all of the rest of the above content in the article.

Go ahead and protest the protest site. There was no story. Some citizens bought baseball tickets of their own initiative (when the basketball and football teams REFUSED to sell them tickets just because they were homosexuals, nope no homosexuals at Cowboys or Mavericks games).

Care to tell me why homosexuals didn't go to the baseball games before this sales rep was hired?