Valentine's Day 2024

 Valentine's Day

Today we celebrate Valentine's day with athletes kissing.

Above, Italian oarsmen Ercole Olgeni and Giovanni Scaturin kiss after winning a gold medal in the 1920 Olympics.

Cleveland Indians players Bob Lemon and Gene Bearden kiss after winning the World Series in 1948.

During a 1996 football (soccer) match in Scotland between the Rangers and the Inverness Caledonian Thistle, Rangers player Paul 'Gazza' Gascoigne accidentally bumped heads with teammate Ally McCoist, giving McCoist a split lip.  To make amends, Gazza decided to "kiss it and make it better."

English cricket player Graeme Swann kisses teammate Alastair Cook in the 2009 Ashes Test match against Australia.

Liverpool football (soccer) players and buddies Steven Gerrard and Xabi Alonso celebrate a 2005 win over Milan.

Manchester United football (soccer) players Gary Neville and Paul Scholes celebrating a win in 2010.

Michael Sam, at left, the first openly gay NFL player, kissing his boyfriend, Vito Cammisano, when he was drafted for the St. Louis Rams in 2014.

In 2017, L.A. Dodgers player Yasiel Puig kissed his batting coach Turner Ward after every home run that he hit – and he hit 28 of them.

And since this is the Unashamed Male blog, here's Yasiel Puig in the nude from ESPN's The Body Issue.

Jake Atlas, real name Kenny Marquez, is an openly gay pro wrestler, here kissing his opponent Dom Kubrick in 2018.

We end with this photo of kissing and something more.  Are they athletes?  Google thinks they are.  When I tried to do a Google image search on this photo a few years ago, Google categorized it as "collegiate wrestling."  That's not what I'd call it, but I guess there could have been some wrestling involved.

Happy Valentine's Day, sending you aloha (love) from Hawaii.