Professional baseball exists in a state of homoerotic tension. Hard wood, juiced balls, banging schemes, monster dongs- all beautiful flowers on the etymological tree of longing. Brotherly love is only permitted as butt slaps, slips of the tongue, and communal showering; verboten is genuine, sincere touch, kinship or play. This is a damn shame.
As the eyes of baseball superfans’ turn towards Korea, the creaking strain of unmade love sounds again. The fan listens, awaiting a crack in stoic masculinity.
But what is that feeling coming over me? A shockwave amidst social isolation! A smooch! A kiss! A peck! Park Min Woo tenderly placing his lips on the neck of Kiwoom’s Park Byung Ho. This is perfect. It is pure joy. Now more than ever, vicarious kisses bring joy.
Yes, it was kind of Mr. Park to actualize a pandemic’s worth of wanting in a single touch. But what if instead of an isolated incident; this were the norm. A home run is presently celebrated with crooning and caressing, why not add the delicate dance of lips?
We already watch with baited breath- disgust and desire- as Yasiel Puig takes his big tar covered bat into his hands, holds it to his mouth, and gives it a luscious, loving lick. How he scampers along the basepaths, tongue out, wagging, wiggling, writhing, punctuating success with a pelvic thrust.
He is baseball’s most GIFable player, but he is only one man of increasing irrelevance. What the people clamor for, what baseball needs, is that next step. Full-Contact Super-Star Smooching.
The first good player who pioneers this amorous celebration becomes an instant superstar. Baseball’s much maligned demise will be instantly reversed. The popularity of America’s past time will swell with our increasingly sexually liberated youth and those who understand that a few kisses amongst friends is a fine and lovely thing.
To those who say "oh, that’s alienating to the more conservative fans." I will simply point that man on man platonic kissing is found everywhere from fraternities to the Hell’s Angels. Yet no one calls those institutions liberal. But also, fuck that bullshit. The reactionaries have too much say. Let the boys kiss! Let the birds sing! Let the flowers bloom!