Congrats on 16 years in the majors, Todd Jones. Congrats on 319 saves, including 235, the most in Detroit Tigers’ history.

Sadly, that’s not how we’ll remember you. This is.

In 2003, while Jones played for the Colorado Rockies, a play called Take Me Out was on Broadway, one where a baseball player came out to his team as gay. A reporter from The Denver Post asked the question to a number of Rockies: Would it matter if a teammate was gay?

Most answered the question politely and, if nothing else, politically correctly. But not Jones.

“I wouldn’t want a gay guy being around me,” Jones said. “It’s got nothing to do with me being scared. That’s the problem: All these people say he’s got all these rights. Yeah, he’s got rights or whatever, but he shouldn’t walk around proud. It’s like he’s rubbing it in our face. ‘See me, Hear me roar.’ We’re not trying to be close-minded, but then again, why be confrontational when you don’t really have to be?”

Suddenly the entire Rockies locker room smelled as the team’s PR department crapped its pants.

More after the jump on how the team tried to apologize, why a national publication continued to allow Jones to write for it, and how Jones did his best to make himself the center of attention again.

Quickly, the Rockies called sent out a statement, saying the team loves everyone: Black, White, gay, straight, transgendered, Muslim, George W Bush, Bengals’ owner Mike Brown (well, hopefully not that far). Then they forced Jones to have a press conference. And he celebrated it the way he wanted: By not taking a word back.

“I think my only mistake was that I made my views public,” said Jones, who was teary-eyed at times during his brief statement. “And for that, I apologize to the Rockies and I apologize to my teammates for putting them through this.”

And the world cried with him. Sob. Sob. Must be a rough life.

Before his comments, Jones wrote a column for The Sporting News and, somewhat shockingly, the column continued after, all the way up to right now. So maybe we shouldn’t be surprised that, in TSN’s retirement piece, there’s no mention of Jones’ brain-dead comments from five years back.

You stay classy, soon-to-be-dead print rag and outspoken reliever man.