Illustration by Tim Walker

So now John figures he understands what I meant when I talked about the difference between exciting football and impressive football. I'm mostly glad about that. I like it when people have to concede I was right.

In an e- mail two weeks earlier, I'd told John I'd found the Patriots victory over the Chicago Bears exciting but not impressive. He called me on that statement, asking how a game could be exciting without being impressive.

"The game was exciting for its very lack of impressiveness," I wrote back. "Both teams looked awful, only at different times. So it was high-scoring and close even though it was mostly a lot of sucky football."

He let it go, but I knew he wasn't convinced.

But now he says he gets it. Only in reverse. It's late in the second quarter of the Pats' match against the Minnesota Vikings, and the Patriots appear to have things well in hand. They've scored three touchdowns, seemingly without a ton of effort, and held Minnesota without a score. They've blocked the Vikings' lone field-goal attempt, and they've recovered three Minnesota fumbles. It's impressive as hell, but at this point the game is anything but exciting.

For the most part, that's fine. The Pats are winning big; that's something to be happy about.

My only problem with it is that as a result of the game's leisurely feel, it's relatively quiet here at Fritz. Guys are talking, but I don't hear anyone talking about the game. And while they're generally staying attuned to what's happening on TV, all they
really have to offer when the Pats do well is mild applause. It would be hard to muster the energy for anything more.

But the thing is, I need more. I didn't come to this gay sports bar in the South End hoping to shatter stereotypes, but I'd really rather not confirm any. And if things keep up like this, I worry, it's going to be hard to make it clear that this lack of involvement in the game doesn't have anything to do with the anyone's sexuality.

Andrew, the bartender, may have figured out what I'm thinking. Or maybe he's just worried that the journalist wandered in on the wrong day. He sets me up with a beer and tells me he wishes I'd been here for that Bears game. "It was packed," he says, "and it was loud."

There's always a better crowd when the Pats play at four o'clock (as they did against Chicago) than when they're on at one, Andrew assures me. I tell him I'm not worried about it. The crowd is plenty big and getting bigger.

I'm lying about not being worried. But I'm hopeful the second half will be a good bit more interesting.

Then as the game approaches halftime, the Pats turn the ball over on downs at the Vikings 29-yard line. Minnesota's offense comes to life, moving the ball 71 yards in five plays to score a touchdown and bring the game within two scores. I hear some loud cursing from somewhere in the bar as Vikings quarterback Daunte Culpepper throws the touchdown pass and I think, okay, this is more like it. But I can't pretend it's quite there yet.

I CAME to Fritz hoping to find an answer to a question that's been bugging me for several weeks.

I've spent a lot of time with football fans this season, and I've been struck by the level of homophobia I've encountered. Mostly it's been garden-variety, non-directional homophobia. That is, no one's been the target of it, it's just been a lot of faceless yahoos yelling, "Hey, faggot" and "You queer" at each other. But while that may be less physically dangerous than outright gay bashing, it's damned ugly just the same.

I've listened to guys use "fag" and "queer" as insults in and outside of two stadiums, in bars, and on a bus trip to Buffalo. I met a drunken idiot at a bar in Foxborough opening night who complained that "some queer pinched [his] ass" while he was trying to find a scalper outside Gillette. I watched members of the crowd that same night debate which quarterback is the bigger fag, the Steelers' Kordell Stewart (who has been the subject of persistent rumors about his sexual orientation) or the 49ers' Jeff Garcia, whose speech patterns have a stereotypically gay (read: effeminate) quality about them (and who, you know, plays for San Francisco).

Of the 10 games leading up to today, games I've spent in the company of a wide variety of fans in a mix of settings, there have only been three during which I never heard some disparaging remark about gays. For a guy who wants to believe his love of an inherently macho game is not incompatible with his progressive social outlook, that's pretty discouraging.

Then there's the homophobia that seemingly pervades the NFL. As with most men's professional sports, football is apparently so hostile to gay players that they remain closeted at virtually all costs. And when a player, even a retired player, comes out, as former defensive lineman Esera Tuaolo did a few weeks ago, there's invariably a backlash. The fallout from Tuaolo's well-publicized revelation is still ongoing. Newspapers are only today reporting that 49ers running back Garrison Hearst has finally apologized for anti-gay statements he made to the Fresno Bee after Tuaolo came out.

"I don't want any faggots on my team," Hearst reportedly told the Bee. "I know this might not be what people want to hear, but that's a punk. I don't want any faggots in this locker room."

Pressure from the community, the 49ers organization, and the league forced Hearst to take it back. And that's something, I suppose. But I haven't read any reports of him being shunned by his teammates or other players, as any professional athlete who made a similar statement about an ethnic group surely would have been. John Rocker, another famous professional athlete/bigot was suspended from baseball in 1999, but that was more a reaction to his racism than to his homophobia and misogyny. That says a lot about the regressive state of pro sports. And it's all made me wonder how gay football fans stick with the game.

My question -- the one I ask of John, one of my oldest friends, as well as Frank and Anthony, a pair of guys I only met this afternoon here at Fritz -- is this: how do you love a game that hates you?

The answer I get from all three men is a good deal simpler (and makes me a good deal sadder) than I had expected. What it boils down to is that there's no point in getting angry at football for something that goes on all around you all the time.

As a straight, white man, someone who has never been the target of any bigotry on any level, I have a hard time getting my head around that. It's all but impossible for me to conceive of being rejected, targeted even, by people and not come out hating them.

Anthony brings up Hearst's statement to illustrate his point of view. "I could care less what he says. I don't care if he dies," Anthony says. "It doesn't faze me in any way."

For Anthony, it's a love of the game that matters. The fact that some fans and some players are bigots doesn't change that love. Anthony and Frank both say they grew up watching and playing sports -- football, baseball, and hockey. They like the game. And they're not going to be chased away from it.

That, I can get my head around.

IT'S GETTING pretty loud in the bar now. The crowd has swollen considerably while I've been chatting with Frank and Anthony. It's midway through the third quarter and while there hasn't been a score yet in the second half, you can feel that Minnesota is back in the game.

The Pats' two possessions of the quarter have produced all of 36 yards. They've changed their play calling, abandoning the short passes they typically have so much success with in an effort to keep the clock running. As usual, it isn't working. And now Minnesota has started a drive on the Patriots side of the field and is moving toward a second score.

Culpepper hits Kelly Campbell for a touchdown and suddenly the crowd is engaged. Loud groans come up from everywhere in the room. Somewhere way off to my left there's a pained, "Arrrgh!"

Frank takes a few steps toward the TV nearest us. He could see the set clearly from our spot at the bar, so I can only assume he's hoping his very proximity will somehow throw off the Vikings' attempt at the extra point.

In reality, Gary Anderson's kick doesn't matter all that much. It gets the Vikes to within seven, but even a miss wouldn't have served Frank's purposes. He's got the Pats giving eight and a half points. He needs some offense if he's going to win some money today.

My favorite thing about Frank is that he's a Pats fan from New Jersey. He has friends in Boston -- he, Anthony and Anthony's boyfriend, Jim, are up visiting them for the weekend -- but no real connection to New England. Frank, like Anthony, is mostly a Giants fan. But his AFC team is the Patriots.

"How do you get to be a Pats fan in New Jersey?" I ask him.

"Because I hate the Jets," he offers in a tone so matter-of-fact, so utterly, easily honest, I can't help but like the guy. Hatred of the Jets is the best qualification I can think of for a Pats fan from outside the region.

The teams swap field goals to begin the fourth quarter. The bar erupts in a lilting, "Letttttt's goooo!" as Adam Vinatieri hits from 34 yards out to get the Pats' lead back up to seven (24-17). And it isn't long thereafter that the crowd is taunting Anderson for missing his second attempt of the quarter, a 41-yarder with 7:37 left to play.

Two clock-eating Pats offensive possessions and two stalled Minnesota drives later, the game is over. The Pats have won, but managed once again to look fairly unspectacular in victory, this time despite having gotten off to a stellar start.

And, unfortunately for Frank, the Pats haven't covered. He can live with that, though. He won his other bet of the day (on the hated Jets) so he's come up pretty close to even.

"It's okay," Frank says. "We needed the win."

"And five more after this," I answer, watching details of the Jets' and Dolphins' victories scroll across the TV screen. Frank offers only a short nod of agreement.

I turn to John. "So in the end, it was half exciting, half impressive," I say. He's had his share of drinks and it takes a second for the words to register. But then his eyes light up. "You know," he says, "you're right."

This time, though, just being right isn't quite enough to make me glad. But I suppose I can learn to live with that.

Sean Glennon can be reached at sean@thispatsyear.com.

Issue Date: November 29 - December 5, 2002