When Robbie Rogers was called in as a substitute during the Los Angeles Galaxy's 4-0 beat down on the Seattle Sounders in Carson Sunday night, he became the first openly gay male athlete to play in a North American major league game.
The Huntington Beach resident had only signed with LA on Saturday. The 26-year-old midfielder played seniors with Orange County Blue Stars in 2005, was on the U.S. National Team in 2009 and came out as gay in February.
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Perhaps the most refreshing part of this story is how some Toronto Sun readers reacted to the news: “Boring story … big deal;” “Lookin' for a story here … not seeing one.”
Others pointed out that any time a player blazes a trail in the sports world, it is big news.
And, of course, the paper also received a comment like this from “The Rub 'n Tug Thug:” “Insane pervs can play sports too! Imagine that. hehe.”
Who knew the Toronto Sun was a Freedom newspaper?
Rogers tweeted this after the match:
Here's video:
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OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.