Real Men Read Books


Homo Nogo Togo
Kazuhito Tadano, pre-Indians, post-porn


Gabe Kapler neo-porn star


Jim Rome. Grrr. Mantalk.


Daniel Sunjata in Take Me Out


Brady, wherefore art thou?


Mepham High School's mascot
The (Butt) Pirate


Tim Lobinger, Vaulter


Lobinger, semi-streaker


Patrick Graber
in a self-portrait, ironically titled
"Thinking Man's Pose."



_____________

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Freak Factor

by Jim Provenzano
Bay Area Reporter
Sports Complex

Sept. 25, 2003 - In honor of this weekend's Folsom Street Fair, here's a potpourri of the interesting array of kinky sexual acts -or strange and sexual behavior- of a bevy of alleged heterosexuals in the realm of sports.

Comic Joe Rogan raised a few plucked eyebrows with his new shaved and waxed look in the latest “Men’s Fitness (i.e. porno for closet cases). The formerly furry ‘Fear Factor’ host looks fit to be plowed in one pose, showing off his flexilbility from all those years of martial arts training. See you at the next circuit party, Joe!

Our top story; or is it bottom? Among the near dozen rookies that the Cleveland Indians recently signed is Kazuhito Tadano. Baseball being all the rage in Japan, it isn't surprising that the team known for its leering stereotypical Native American mascot would hire an Asian player.

But Tadano's one-time freelance job in a gay porn video sure aint the norm at ESPN.

TA DA! NO.
Hold your horses. This is not the earth-shattering alleged "gay baseball player outing" the media worked itself into a frenzy over a while back. Besides, Brendan Lemon dates Latinos.

While a poor struggling swinger in his home country, according to the ‘Plain Dealer,’ sportscaster Jim Rome, and other sources, Tadano made a mere $750-1000 for doing the humpty dance in a Japanese gay sex video.

There was some talk that a shoulder injury may have dissuaded Japanese clubs from hiring Tadano, and caused some major league teams to back away. But the revelation that Tadano (along with several of his college teammates at Rikkyo University) was paid to play with different bats altogher in the video, obviously played a big part in his difficulty finding a team.

Said the gravel-voiced Rome of Tadano's off-season exploits, "That would qualify you as a gay porn actor. If you are making movies committing homosexual acts, I’m guessing you’ve met all the requirements.

"I’m also guessing that this won't be a major distraction and it won't cause any dissention in the clubhouse. A group of enlightened individuals (i.e. ballplayers) wouldn’t have any problem with that. We'll just assume that people like Todd Jones and John Rocker will embrace Tadano with open arms."

Take that as sarcasm from a sports reporter who hasn't seen the play Take Me Out. Still, handsome baseball players take note: You can perform in gay porno, just don't be gay.

"The initial opportunity for us came by seeing his talent with no contractual guarantees," Indians general manager Mark Shapiro said. "After we had a chance to talk to him and watch his interaction with other players, we made the decision to sign him. It was our assessment that the event in the past was an isolated incident. It was not a pattern of current or future behavior. He was young and made a one-time mistake."

The Indians signed him for $67,000, and were the only major league US team to offer him a contract. At the time, they made it clear that they would support Tadano when the video became public knowledge.

When Tadano told his story in April to fellow players in Kinston, N.C., where he started the season, manager Torey Lovullo was in the locker room.

"Watching how our guys reacted to Kaz, how they encouraged him and supported him, was one of the most emotional moments I've ever had in baseball," said Lovullo.

A few blushing press announcements and guilt-ridden confessionals later, Tadano, baseball reps and sports journalists seem only too happy to forget the entire affair, as Tadano claims he is heterosexual, and was only in it for the money.

Apparently, being openly gay, and unable to even get a date, is a bigger deal.

Now, if only it had been another player, say former Indian and Baltimore Oriole Brady Anderson, who was actually traded from the Indians for Tadano and several other players, many fans would be ecstatic. Of course, if Brady simply hadn't been dumped from the Indians, I'd be happy, but if he did a porn video, even more fans would plotz (I would die happy in front of my VCR).

WORLDLY GOOD
Would topping on tape make Tadano gay enough for the Gay Softball World Series, held last month in our nation's capital? Probably not.

In Washington, D.C., a Houston team filed a protest with tournament officials alleging that another team wasn't gay enough.

The Houston Force, of the Montrose Softball League, sought to disqualify the Atlanta Power for having two more straight players than the rules allowed. This is one of the more problematic regulations of this league. After a rigorous inquisition (Liza karaoke?), they brought players in one by one and asked about their sexuality. The Atlanta club was exonerated and allowed to play, gaily.

HOMO ON THE RANGER
Fans at a recent Texas Rangers game may not have been in gay porn, but viewed it once or twice. And as most gay baseball fans know, former Texas Ranger Gabe Kapler might as well, with his International Male bikini posing, Prince Albert pierced penis and stunning musculed looks, he's the most metro of metrosexuals.

Members of Dallas's gay and lesbian volleyball league, its gay rugby team, its gay softball leagues, and the Texas Gay Rodeo Association, attended a Rangers baseball game on September 14, and managed to keep their clothes on. A few shriekingly rabid antigay fans called foul, the ‘Fort Worth Star Telegram’ reported, giving the homophobes more press than the hundreds of well-behaved gay and lesbian attendees, who attended the game as part of a fund-raising event sponsored by the Rangers.

Rangers flaks, not unlike Disney's, never outright admitted to events being a sanctioned "Gay Day" (The Florida Marlins, however did earlier this year, to scant criticism.) Nevertheless, news of the gay athletes' plans to attend the Rangers game caused one loon to launch a Web site in opposition, www.protestgayday.com.

"This is a family event," said protest organizer Rick Warden, who told the Star Telegram that he doesn't expect the team to bar gay people from the ballpark (how Christian of him), but that he does expect them to refrain from facilitating what he calls "the gay agenda of normalization."

Apparently Mr. Warden prefers us to remain in our straps and chaps, celebrating sexual experimentation, or remaining relegated to the cartoon parodies of ‘South Park’ characters. Goodness, next thing you know we'll be asking for hot dogs and popcorn!

"The Texas Rangers should be ashamed," Warden huffs on his screed-filled Web site. "This event legitimizes the perverted gay and lesbian lifestyle in the eyes of the unsuspecting innocent child."

PINE INNINGS
Yes, they should behave more like the stolid role models at Mephan High School.

The entire Varsity football team's season has been cancelled after three boys on the Bellmore, Long Island team were accused of sexually assaulting junior varsity boys at a loosely supervised camp in rural Pennsylvania.

About 60 varsity and junior varsity players and five coaches spent a week last month at Camp Wayne in Preston Park, Pa. During the camp, three varsity players, ages 15, 16 and 17, allegedly sodomized three junior varsity boys with a broomstick, pine cones and golf balls, while other players looked on.

At first, none of the victims reported the crimes, until one boy's rectum didn't stop bleeding, and he told his parents.

Football coach Kevin McElroy declined to comment to media sources. One longtime assistant coach who did not want to be identified to New York Newsday said he and the other coaches did bed checks up until 11:30 p.m. during the trip.

"I'm sick over this," the assistant coach said. "The whole staff is."

The Mepham Pirates have gone to Camp Wayne without incident every summer for the past few years, school officials said. The camp rents its bunks, facilities and fields to various high school football teams once the regular campers leave in mid-August.

Many parents of players said they learned of the accusations only in the past day or two, and were still trying to separate fact from rumor.

"I heard there was duct tape. I heard there were broom sticks. Duct tape is one thing ..." said one father. "The kids didn't realize just how severe some of the things they were doing were."

This is what in homophopic heterosexual tribes is called a "hazing." Dozens of such sick incidents take place each year among high school and college teams and fraternities. Apparently to that father, being wrapped in duct tape is okay, and the preferred form of torture sanctioned by Homeland Security bigwig Tom Ridge.

"For their own sake, they shouldn't be playing," one parent said as Mepham students were dismissed. "Their heads aren't going to be into it. The other teams will harass them."

But the mother of a ninth-grade player said the district, not the students, is responsible for what happened during a preseason football camp in Pennsylvania last month.

"I blame the school district because they let it happen," the parent, who did not want to be identified, told Newsday. "A lot of the problems they have is due to lack of supervision at the camp."

Several students at the school held a brief walkout in defense of the team,and, possibly, its sadistic teen sodomists.

Perhaps times have changed, but I don't recall ever being chased down with a pine cone-wielding jock in my teenage days.

While many know the difference between an amusing kinky sexual act, and the outrage of a gang rape, conservative reactionaries at such screedfests like www.freerepublic.org are calling the assaulters "homosexual rapists."

These boys most probably aren't homosexual. If they were, they'd know to use lubricant first, or just have sex. In a better world, teenagers would be allowed to date each other, instead of repressing their desires, and turning them into an outrageous form of violent abuse with inappropriately-shaped objects.

In consenting adult format, such kinky acts might someday have their own booth at the Folsom Street Fair, next to the PETA for Proper Punishment stand. Just kidding!!

For more of such stories, visit www.stophazing.com and www.badjocks.com

GLOBES OF GLORY
German pole vaulter Tim Lobinger might qualify for "acting gay," or at least gaily acting out. He may be fined for bearing his butt at the crowd at the World Athletics Final in Monaco last week.

Nick Davies, spokesman for IAAF, the world governing body of the sport, said officials were studying the case and it was "likely'' Lobinger will be stripped of US$5,000 in prize money from the Monaco meet. That's $2500 per butt cheek.

According to Associated Press, Lobinger is known in Germany for flamboyant behavior (Is that code for gay?). He won the event in Monaco and then ran a “lap of honor” with his shorts down in front of a crowd that included members of Monaco's royal family.

Despite the fact that a few of the royal family's male paramours have also been caught frolicking nude, they have not done so at public athletic events. They do know their protocol, er, proctocol.

``We all know Tim's showmanship qualities. But even with all the tension of such an important competition, something like that doesn't belong there, it's rude unsportsmanlike behavior,'' German athletics federation president ClemensProkop said.

Apparently, he's never been to a rugby match.

STALIN-GRABBED
And, finally, in possibly the worst example of thuggish jock behavior, a bodybuilder was arrested for offering to off the alleged rape victim of basketball player Kobe Bryant.

Patrick Graber, who was living in the Los Angeles area on an expired visa, claimed to be a member of the Russian mafia, and was taken into custody after accepting a bag full of fake money from undercover cops.

The Swiss national approached Bryant with a creepy offer to kill the young Colorado woman who accused him of rape. The alleged victim has been harassed before, and an Iowa man has also been arrested for making death threats via telephone. Graber was arrested last week after he was turned in by the basketball star's security team.

Graber has a Web page where he's shown in a muscular pose, and claims to be a fitness trainer and nutritionalist.

No mention of specializing in whack jobs.



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