Of all the difficult questions facing Toronto Blue Jays management in this difficult season, this one should be easy: Kevin Pillar needs to sit awhile.
Unless there is a credible explanation for what looked like Pillar shouting a homophobic slur at Atlanta Braves pitcher Jason Motte after striking out on Wednesday night — that is, if he did not say the derogatory term, despite the video evidence that suggests he did — then this is something that does not require a great deal of internal wrestling.
You cannot utter such words on the field of play while representing your team and your sport and expect to escape punishment.
Pillar will presumably be contrite about the incident on Thursday, and if he offers a spectacular and thoughtful apology it’s possible the Blue Jays could find some way to not have one of the few pleasant surprises of their 2017 season miss games. But the early returns from Wednesday night are not promising.
The centrefielder was apologetic for his outburst, which came after Motte struck him out on a quick pitch — a move that is dodgy but which some of Pillar’s own teammates have been known to do — but his apology never addressed the actual language that he seemed to use or the hurt that such slurs cause.
“It was immature, it was stupid, it was uncalled for,” Pillar told reporters in Atlanta. “It’s part of the game, it’s just, I’m a competitive guy and heat of the moment.” He went on to say that the shouting came in part from frustration at the fact that the Jays had a good run going and have now been thumped in three straight by the Braves.
All of which is a good explanation from someone who wants to apologize for starting a bench-clearing incident because he was mad he struck out. It is not, at all, a good explanation from someone who has uttered a homophobic slur. Pillar was not asked directly about the slur, because reporters on the scene were not yet aware of what had been caught on tape, so it’s possible that Pillar did not know that the specific insult he used appeared obvious on video replay, and he was just apologizing for the outburst in general. That’s the most optimistic interpretation. If Pillar did know that he had been caught using a slur, and he thought the proper response was to just apologize for getting mad in the heat of the moment, then he has missed the point entirely.
The Blue Jays, sadly, have some experience in this regard. When former shortstop Yunel Escobar played a game in 2012 with a Spanish homophobic insult written on his eye black, he was suspended for three games and gave a depressing press conference at which he apologized for his actions while at the same time saying he didn’t really understand why anyone was mad. The former GM and former manager both gave much weight to Escobar’s explanation that the slur — “maricon” — had a different meaning among Latino players, and Escobar even offered the I-have-friends-who-are-gay defence.
Five years later, there is no such wiggle room for Pillar. If he said what it looks like he said, this is an absolute liability offence. Anger, embarrassment, the frustration of losing three in a row to the freaking Braves, none of it excuses using that slur in that space: the middle of a baseball diamond in a game watched by hundreds of thousands of fans.
It feels stupid to even point this out, but for those who think a homophobic slur can be explained away by saying the person who shouted it didn’t really mean it like that, would such a defence still be offered if the slur was derogatory toward African-Americans or Latinos? We are at the point now where it’s generally accepted that the racial insults that were casually used in my grandparents’ generation are unacceptable. We are not yet at that point with homophobic slurs.
If Pillar used such a term, he should own it, apologize for using it, and be prepared to sit because of it. Language matters. It’s that simple.