The Texas Rangers baseball club is the only Major League Baseball team that will not hold a Pride night at one of their games in June..The Rangers entertained the LGBT community in the past, holding an informal gay night in 2003, which, despite not officially marketing the idea, was met with heavy protest..The team has not held another Pride night since then, with Rangers COO Neil Leibman telling The Dallas Morning News, in 2020, “With respect to Pride Night, we reached out to the resource center and said what can we do internally. We immediately adopted some changes they suggested to be more inclusive in hiring practices. I think that’s more meaningful than just saying, ‘OK, we had a Pride Night.’”.According to Texasscoreboard.com the team issued a statement this year to HuffPost which read, in part, “Our commitment is to make everyone feel welcome and included in Rangers baseball. That means in our ballpark, at every game, and in all we do, for both our fans and our employees.”.“We deliver on that promise across our many programs to have a positive impact across our entire community.” .Texasscoreboard.com adds “the team did not, however, give a reason as to why they are not specifically hosting a “Pride Night” like the other 29 MLB teams.”.Rafael McDonnell, who works with the activist group LGBTQ Resource Center, expressed disappointment to the Texas news outlet saying, “They’ve made some efforts, but it’s very much a start. Compared to their peer professional sports teams, they have some distance to go.”.Going to a baseball game is about the baseball game, says Brady Gray, a board member for Texas Family Project,.“People just want to watch baseball. To the vast majority of fans, Rangers’ decision to buck the trend of celebrating sexuality is a breath of fresh air,” he says..“Finally, families can enjoy a day at the ballpark with their children without worrying about having another person’s sexuality on display.”
