A veteran umpire has announced that he is gay -- the first umpire in the MLB, and the first male official in all four major leagues, to do so publicly.
Dale Scott, who has been officiating baseball games for 29 years, was glowingly profiled by Referee magazine in October. Though the piece didn't explore his personal life, Scott was asked for some non-game photos. So he sent in one of him and his husband, Mike.
(Referee's subscriber base is small; Scott's announcement grew legs with an OutSports profile published Tuesday.)
"My thought process was that there's a story about my career and how I got started in umpiring and they're talking to people I have known since junior high and it didn't seem right to have a whole story and pictures without a picture of Mike and I, someone who's been with me through this entire process," Scott told OutSports.
But Scott said he never hid his relationship and that the disclosure in Referee is not "huge flashing news" to those in the MLB.
"I realized that it could open a Pandora's Box, but this is not a surprise to Major League Baseball, the people I work for," he said. "It's not a surprise to the umpire staff. Until Mike and I got married last November, he was my same-sex domestic partner and had his own MLB I.D. and was on my insurance policy."
MLB Commissioner Bud Selig lauded Scott in a statement, according to the Associated Press.
"To his friends and colleagues throughout the game, Dale is universally regarded as a class act," he said. "All of us at Major League Baseball are very proud of him, just as we have always been."
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