During the weigh-in for their rematch in 1962, Cuban welterweight Benny (Kid) Paret called his opponent, Emile Griffith, a “maricon.”

Griffith is gay. A few hours later, he responded by beating Paret to death.

“He called me a name,” the aging fighter would tell the New York Times years later. “So I did what I had to do.”

That’s the power of that word.

Tuesday, during a shameful, dissembling press conference attempting to explain why he’d written the slur on his eye black before a game, Blue Jays shortstop Yunel Escobar insisted instead that it was a “word without meaning.”

It was a nonsensical reply, but Escobar was under no pressure to make a case. Minutes before the press conference began, the team shiftily announced that Escobar would be suspended three games.

“I understand now the actions that I did and that it was a great error,” Escobar said robotically through a translator.

Then he spent the rest of the presser explaining why, in fact, he believed it was no such thing.

There were three key players Tuesday. In a Rashomon sort of way, they each had a very different take on what this embarrassment meant, none of them satisfying.

Though he was the architect of this debacle, Escobar had the least context to offer. He admitted that adorning his face with the words “tu ere maricon” was his own idea, but couldn’t explain why he did it. Then he couldn’t understand why anyone cared.

“I was surprised because I didn’t think that something like that would cause any problems. I didn’t think it would offend anybody,” Escobar said disingenuously.

He thought up the idea 10 minutes before leaving the clubhouse on Saturday afternoon.

Who was the message directed at? “Nobody.”

Then what did you mean by it? “I didn’t mean to say anything. It was not for anyone, and it was not meant to offend.”

Escobar fell back on the excuse that the meaning of the word — anything from “girly” to “faggot” — is nuanced, not so black and white as any gay slur in English.

“It’s just been said around amongst the Latinos,” Escobar said flatly. “It’s not something that’s meant to be offensive. For us, it didn’t have the significance in the way that’s being interpreted. It’s a word used often within teams (and here he shrugged). It’s a word without meaning.”

Escobar would return to this cultural context on several occasions. He’s a little right and a lot more wrong.

Maricon is an effeminizing epithet derived from the diminutive for the proper name Maria del Carmen. It is always an insult, but in different parts of the Spanish diaspora it can have a teasing, even warm, meaning depending on how it’s delivered.

Cuba, where Escobar was born, is not one of those places.

“It’s a slur referring to homosexuals,” Prof. Michelle Gonzalez, a Cuba expert at the University of Miami, said.

Can it be meant in fun, as Escobar seemed to suggest?

“I suppose people will use it in jest,” Gonzalez said doubtfully. “But that doesn’t make it any less offensive.”

Then Gonzalez got at the crux of this, if we are to believe Escobar’s clumsy contention that this was a meaningless jape: “People will say many things in private. People swear. But there is a difference when you display it.”

If Escobar would have us believe that he wasn’t thinking “queers” when he wrote this, it would have gone better if he hadn’t pretended he’d only just been handed a Spanish dictionary. It got worse when he began ticking off his bonafides.

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“I have friends who are gay. The person who decorates my house is gay. The person who cuts my hair is gay,” said Escobar. “Honestly, they haven’t felt as offended about this.”

That’s possible. How much are you paying them to decorate your house?

This was credulous stuff from someone who is either bright as a box of hammers or a liar. Likely somewhere in between. The ugly truth would have done him far more credit.

On either side of Escobar, literally and figuratively, sat his bosses — the ones who’d cooked up the pre-emptive and flimsy little suspension to get this whole issue in the rearview.

“The salary for those three days will be donated to (gay sports advocates) You Can Play,” Escobar intoned dolefully, as if it were his idea.

General manager Alex Anthopoulos had the decency to look wrung out.

“What’s come out of all this is the lack of education,” Anthopoulos said (many Spanish speakers have noted that Escobar’s message was not just stupid, it was functionally illiterate). “I know it’s not just an issue in sports, it’s an issue in life . . . (I)t’s clear that the problem isn’t going away.”

Though Escobar was pretending shock that anyone had drawn a line between a gay slur and anti-gay intent, Anthopoulos had the decency not to pull a blank face. He also didn’t do anything substantive to stand tall for the cause.

Three games is meaningless. It’s worse than that — it’s an acknowledgement that wrong was done, but a wrong judged so perfunctory that it requires only a sop to the whiners.

At least Anthopoulos did not end up playing logical Twister. That duty was left to manager John Farrell. Well into this goon show, Farrell was asked if there was a problem with homophobia in major league locker rooms.

“I don’t believe so. And I say that because I don’t see any examples of that . . . (suddenly realizing who was sitting two chairs over) . . . I know we’re here discussing what was interpreted by some as a homophobic action, but you don’t see that.”

Got that? Not happening. Well, might be happening. But actually, not happening.

Escobar was already moving beyond this terrible ordeal (terrible for him).

“Honestly, I wish this wasn’t an issue any longer,” he said, less than a day since it had become an issue for him. “I have nothing against the gay community. Honestly, I’m sorry.”

What’s been learned here? Nothing. What good will come of it? None. What does it signify? That we have moved far enough in this debate that it can’t just be brushed aside. It must be brushed aside with a press conference. A thousand teachable moments don’t equal one lesson learned.

Some may see this as progress, if a poor sort. On the other hand, one does wonder what Emile Griffith makes of how far we’ve come in 50 years.