Dick-Taps

Richards Grabs Greinke
Screengrab from Fox Sports West

I might be a little obsessed with this.

Only one image from last night’s Dodgers 5-0 loss to the Angels remains seared in my mind today. It wasn’t the Dodgers first inning implosion. It wasn’t Yasiel Puig’s fingerwag to Erick Aybar in the sixth inning. It wasn’t Mike Trout’s fingerwag to Yasiel Puig in the seventh inning.

It was this. When Zack Greinke flew out to right field to end the second inning with the bases loaded, I could have sworn I saw Angels starter Garrett Richards reach out as their paths crossed and give Greinke a dick tap. As these images were rolling live before my eyes on the Fox Sports West (aka Angels) broadcast, that’s the only thing my brain processed: OH MY WORD, RICHARDS DICK-TAPPED GREINKE!!!

Over the last several years the more I covered professional athletes, the less I understood them. The majority of them are stuck in an arrested adolescence, a state where their need to prove their masculinity takes homoerotic tones long past their teenage years (see: every Greg Maddux story).

I’m sure the majority of heterosexual men do not greet each other with a dick tap. At least, I have not seen it done in my presence. I’m also pretty sure the only time homosexual men greet each other as such is to feel out the hardon and announce their intention to fuck. I think. I’m such a hermit and feel I’m a little out of touch with life outside.

Here are some questions.

  1. Is the dick-tap a common form of greeting for heterosexuals?
  2. What other homoerotic acts to heterosexual professional athletes engage with one another? I know about the jersey shredding after walk-off hits. But is there more subversive acts like piss drinking? Spitting in each other’s mouths?
  3. Why have gay men not use the dick-tap regularly as a salutation?
  4. Can I go up to guys and dick-tap them?

I really think this opens up a whole new world for me.