The nearly 900 LGBT Phillies fans who attended Gay Community Night at Citizens Bank Park Friday were treated to the premiere of the team’s “It Gets Better” video.
The LGBT-positive message was delivered on the big screen by Phillies celebs Chase Utley, John Mayberry Jr., Roy Halladay, Michael Stutes and Hunter Pence.
The team joined a handful of other Major League Baseball clubs who have participated in the project, which collects videos that encourage LGBT youth to have hope for the future.
The project was launched last fall amid a wave of LGBT youth suicides and has been gaining traction with professional sports clubs in recent months.
In the 30-second video, the players each delivered a few lines of the message: “There’s nothing easy about being young, about being yourself, about being an individual. Every day brings changes, challenges and emotion that helps define who you are. But something you should never experience is being bullied, intimidated or pressured to be someone or something you are not. The Philadelphia Phillies are proud to join ItGetsBetter.org to let all LGBT young people know that life gets better. We promise.”
Jerome Hunt, a longtime Phillies fan, launched a petition this summer on Change.org to urge the team to participate in the project and welcomed its completion.
“I think it was a great video,” Hunt said. “And I’m glad they delivered it as scheduled, right around the back-to-school time.”
Some other teams’ videos did not specifically reference LGBT youth in their content, while the Phillies’ piece did.
While Hunt said most people understand that “It Gets Better” is geared toward LGBT young people, it’s still appreciated that the Phillies made specific mention of that — as well as debuted the video in front of all of their fans.
“I can understand why some teams didn’t, but I think it’s good to mention LGBT youth because it does need to be talked about,” he said. “And I’m glad to see that they played the video on the screen at the game and didn’t just put it on their website. That gave it more exposure and showed that they went through that effort to make sure the video was out there for as many people.”
Brian Sims, president of the Gay and Lesbian Lawyers of Philadelphia and a speaker on LGBT issues in the sports field, said that while the Phillies should be commended on their speedy response to the campaign, credit is also due to the Gay Community Night organizer Larry Felzer, who’s forged a relationship between the community and the team for the past nine years of the event.
“They’ve been doing this event for nine years, and that’s long before the ‘It Gets Better’ campaign was even an idea,” Sims said. “So Larry’s been working for a decade with the club on this, and when the time came for the opportunity for the Phillies to show how gay-friendly they are, they did it.”
Jen Colletta can be reached at [email protected].