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Starting tomorrow, I take up my new duties on the night desk for ESPN, leaving the MLB group after 10 years. But given that the game has played a big part in how & why I'm here today, I have more than a few feelings about this. 1/
I've been working on baseball since @huckabayforum invited me to help him cofound @baseballpro 25 years ago. A shared love of the game is responsible for more than just my career, it helped make my later coming out as #trans while still working as a journalist possible. 2/
When I started coming out 18 years ago, my teammates at BP didn't have all the answers & neither did I, but they embraced me on the basis of what we had in common instead of getting hung up on what was different. 3/
I was extremely fortunate, and thanks to coworkers and friends like @davepease @Kevin_Goldstein @jay_jaffe @GoStevenGoldman @StephBee118 the late Doug Pappas & so many more, I had the support that too many #trans folks don't get at work. 4/
Because a veteran sports journo like @JPerrotto was ready to go to bat for me, @officialBBWAA was ready to embrace its first trans member in 2008 & one of the first internet-based journalists brought into its ranks. 5/
And thanks to explicit comments & guidance from folks like Jack O'Connell & @susanslusser, I knew the BBWAA had my back as I went back to reporting from the locker room to cover games & players and return to the press box. 6/
Not that I needed it as it turned out; players, managers, GMs accepted me as just another sports scribe, asking questions incisive &/or terrible. Again, though baseball must do better still, I wish more industries were even this ready when it comes to gender in the workplace. 7/
Reporting on-site -- regular season, postseason, the Winter Meetings -- helped put me on ESPN's radar when @david_kull was looking to expand its MLB coverage in 2010; having hired other BP talents in years past, he went to bat for me & I will never forget the debt I owe Dave. 8/
Tweeting news of my move to ESPN on Opening Day 2011 before entering the press box in Wrigley, I will always be gratified that the other reporters gave me a standing O before teasing me over how I'd sat on the story, not breathing a word to them in AZ during spring training. 9/
At ESPN, I've gotten to work with generational talents like @Buster_ESPN @Kurkjian_ESPN & @jaysonst, learned from the incomparable Patricia May & @MzCSmith & enjoyed working with some of the best teammates you could ask for in @dschoenfield @JimBowdenGM & @MarlyRiveraESPN 10/
I also got unprecedented opportunities, like getting to take time out from baseball to cover the first trans athlete to make Team USA, @TheChrisMosier, representing our country in his first international championship event. 11/
We also got to hold an unprecedented, frank conversation between trans athletes at every level & ESPN journalists across the company, to talk about how ESPN can do a better job covering trans athletes. 12/
But in the end, I recognize that the reason why I've gotten to work with so many great people ready to give me a fair shake as a colleague and coworker is because of baseball, something we could, can & will enjoy together. 13/
The game I grew up enjoying through newspaper boxscores & radio broadcasts had a power I did not imagine as a kid, a power to give me not just happiness as a sport but a happy career. I wish that good fortune to belonged to everyone, #trans or not, but I know how lucky I am. 14/
That good fortune exists not because of the game in the abstract, but because of the people within it, who had the everyday brand of courage & courtesy to embrace the then-novel idea that a #trans person can be a valued teammate, coworker & colleague. 15/
If I would ask for anything, it would be that all trans folks were so fortunate. But that is not in their power or mine, gentle readers -- it's in yours, to give someone who might be different from you a fair shake. Use that power, & you might make the world a little better. 16/
So, as I gear up to work with a new sports coverage fun bunch led by the reliably excellent @elizabeth_baugh, I'm not just taking the opportunity to go full Chico Escuela here -- yes, baseball has been very, very good to me. 17/
But the smallest gestures of acceptance across differences have consequences in the lives of others. We can all be very, very good to one another. Sometimes, even when you're sticking to sports, you're doing more than just sticking to sports. Fin/
