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Anthony Bowens announces his presence at Minnesota's Target Field with a batting practice homer. | Photo courtesy of Anthony Bowens Welcome back to Talkin’ Gaysball where we hope to see the day when fans chant “He’s gay! He’s gay! He’s gay!” in an MLB ballpark… Every baseball fan has a ballpark checklist. For most of us, that means crossing off all the major league stadiums we’ve visited. But Anthony Bowens, an out gay pro wrestler, has just begun the best the best variation of this that I’ve heard to date. He’s begun checking off major league ballparks in which he’s hit a home run. Usually in order to assemble a list like that, you have to be Kyle Schwarber. But as of two weeks ago, The Pride of Pro Wrestling has gotten off to an excellent start. Our weekly newsletter is packed with everything from locker room chatter to pressing LGBTQ sports issues. His quest began when AEW announced a promotional collaboration with the Minnesota Twins called “Brawl at the Ballpark” where Bowens and his fellow superstars would wrestle after a game at Target Field. As soon as he heard the show was greenlit, Bowens immediately went to AEW PR with a catalogue of videos showing him in action on the diamond. He had one goal: to take batting practice. “I said, ‘I can give you all this footage. Send it to the Twins!’” he told Outsports, “All I wanted was to try to figure out how to do something like that. I know they sometimes let celebrities hit on the field before the game. I know I could do that and I know I could do it often because I can actually play baseball!” Indeed, before entering the world of pro wrestling, Bowens had played all the way through college at Montclair State and Seton Hall. He still takes the field regularly in Los Angeles with a team called the Valley Boys. A week before Brawl at the Ballpark, he got word that it was a go. He would get a chance to demonstrate his hitting and fielding chops on a major league diamond. The day began with the Twins showing off their Pride M logo display at Target Field and taking Bowens through their LGBTQ community outreach initiatives. He came away impressed with Minnesota’s commitment to bringing communities together through baseball. Twins Pride and The Pride of Pro Wrestling go hand in hand. Photo courtesy of Anthony Bowens Proceeding to dig in at home plate, Bowens began his BP session with a stellar Luis Arraez impression, spraying line drives to every part of the field. Then after demonstrating a solid grip of old school hitting fundamentals over his first ten swings, he connected. “The second it left the bat, in the clip you can hear me go, ‘There it is!’” Bowens remembered, “I felt it. I knew it. And I was like, “Wow, I was right! I had the power to play professional baseball.’” The ball easily cleared the left field fence before slamming off the metal of the bleachers and ricocheting back onto the outfield grass. From every corner of Target Field, you could hear Bowens exclaiming, “GET UP, BABY! GET UP! LET’S GO! SIGN ME UP, BOYS!” (And if that actually convinced Twins ownership to spend to improve their roster, it would be Bowens’ second most incredible achievement of the day.) Afterward, Bowens wanted to get a clip of the moment to send to his father as a way to say thanks for inspiring him to fall in love with baseball. The Twins did that one better and gave Bowens his home run ball. As ballpark keepsakes go, it beats the hell out of a foam finger. Then a week later, Bowens stepped onto the field at Dodger Stadium. Wielding a “SCISSOR ME” bat, he accomplished every Giants fan’s dream: crushing one into the outfield pavilion in the home of the hated Dodgers. “I left my mark at Dodger Stadium!” he exclaimed, “Which is ridiculous because I was asking for so long and figuring out how to get onto a major league field and somehow did it twice in two weeks!” Keen-eyed observers might notice that the Bowens home run tour stopped off at Dodger Stadium around the same time that Shohei Ohtani took a break from pitching. Things that make you go “Hmm…” Inspired by the past couple of weeks, Bowens is hoping to turn this into a full tour to see if he can homer in all 30 ballparks. He has his sights set on hitting at Citizens Bank Park so that he can try to go deep with his Phillies fan father in the stands. And, of course, he’d love to crush a ball into the seats in San Francisco’s Oracle Park. During a time where we’re all waiting to celebrate the next major league player who comes out, Bowens has walked onto two MLB playing fields and hit one out in both. “I think it’s cool that I get to do these things in general but also that I get to do these things as an out athlete. And to show closeted baseball players that there’s someone like me that can do it,” he said. Like a lot of Giants fans, Bowens grew up idolizing Barry Bonds. But unlike almost all of them, Bowens has gotten the chance to emulate him on the field. He also revealed that Bonds’ DGAF persona as a player provided guidance for his own athletic career in a unique way. “I think I learned a lot from watching him play and watching him deal with [negative fan reaction],” he stated, “The hate that we sometimes get as out LGBT athletes, you just have to lock in, kind of ignore it, and use it to fuel you and motivate you to do better. And that’s what he did better than anybody, I think, because he’s the best baseball player I’ve ever seen.” Five Tool Player recognize Five Tool Player. Subscribe to the Outsportsnewsletter to keep up with your favorite out athletes, inspiring LGBTQ sports stories, and more. The author went from the joy of competition back to the tiring debate over trans athletes that misses the chance to have a real discussion on inclusion. Lisa Klaveness has been an outspoken critic of under-fire FIFA President Gianni Infantino, whose predecessor says the out lesbian executive should now replace him.