Leave Mike Piazza Alone

Last Updated on September 30, 2010 by Dave Farquhar

Rumor has it baseball’s most eligible bachelor is gay.
Mike Piazza says he’s not.

That should be the end of it.

Now, if some player came out and said he was gay, he wouldn’t be the first gay baseball player. He probably wouldn’t be the most prominent either. I’ve been told from a reliable source that a baseball superstar who retired in the 1980s and is now in the Hall of Fame is gay. The same source cited another player, not of the same caliber but who played during the same time period, as gay. He’s dropped hints in interviews, but never come out and said he is.

Don’t bother asking me who these players are. I have no reason to out them. I also don’t have three sources, which is the semi-unwritten rule that separates gossip from fact.

We’ve come a long, long way since 1984, when a magazine published an article titled “Reggie Jackson speaks out about his sex life,” and Mike Royko pointed out the absurdity. He’d never thought about Reggie Jackson’s sex life, so he went around asking other people if they’d ever thought of it. One guy asked if he wore his uniform and fielder’s mitt. A woman said no, then asked if he wanted to ask her about Ryne Sandberg. And Royko eventually came to the conclusion that Reggie Jackson’s personal life was Reggie Jackson’s business, and if anyone else cared, well, that was just pathetic.

Brendan Lemon, editor of Out magazine, sparked Piazza rumor by claiming last summer that he was having an affair with a pro baseball player who played on the east coast. He knew when he wrote it that people would think of Piazza, because everyone thinks anyone with his looks and his money ought to be married by now, and if he’s not, it must be because he’s gay.

Has it ever occurred to anybody that maybe Piazza just doesn’t want to be married?

Rumors about my sexuality have followed me my entire life. Well, since puberty. It came to a head in seventh grade. The playground talk that year was at least as bad as anything on South Park and frankly, it bordered on sexual harassment. I was in a combined 7th and 8th grade class, and there was one 8th grader who was as bad as the rest of ’em all put together, but collectively, to these guys, a girl was a collection of pleasure-bearing receptacles. That’s it. Well, that and a pretty decoration to be seen around, hopefully.

I didn’t participate in that. Yeah, I thought about sex as much as the next guy… probably. But someone, somewhere along the way, taught me to keep those thoughts to myself. But since I didn’t hit on or at least gawk at every reasonably attractive female carbon-based being that walked upright and was capable of verbal communication, I didn’t talk about what I wanted to do to them in bed, and since I didn’t boast of having a huge collection of Playboy and Penthouse and Hustler magazines at home, there was only one logical conclusion: Dave’s gay.

(And you thought I was going to say I was the nicest guy in my class. You’re so silly.)

One day the talk turned to one of the prettiest girls in the class. She was a year older than me, blonde, and the object of that biggest loudmouth’s every desire. Actually I think he would have died happy if she’d ever said more than two words to him. Rumor was that she had a thing for me. I’ve never really given any thought to the idea of whether she did or not. Looking back now, maybe she started the rumor just to make the jerk mad, because he hated me more than Roger Clemens hates Mike Piazza. Who knows. But I didn’t give any thought to it. I wasn’t interested. Why? Lots of reasons.

“You’re missing out on a chance of a lifetime,” one of the 8th graders said.

“A chance of a lifetime would be to buy IBM,” I said. (Scout’s honor. That was how I thought in those days. It didn’t make me popular.)

No, I didn’t see it as a chance of a lifetime. And yeah, she was really cute, but not really my type. I had a thing about girls who were taller than me. I got over it, about 10 years later. And she was blonde. I’ve always preferred dark hair and a past. So her hair was the wrong color and she wasn’t old enough to have a past. But even if she’d been the 5’1″ brunette of my dreams, I probably wouldn’t have wanted to date her, because I wasn’t about to date anyone from that town. I knew I was moving that summer, and I didn’t want to miss her.

If those former classmates get together on Friday nights and drink beer and talk about old times, they probably still think I’m gay.

In high school I was supposedly gay. The truth was, I hadn’t figured out how to talk to girls yet. By the time I was 17, I had started to figure out that you’re not supposed to talk to girls, you’re supposed to listen to them. So I dated a little as a senior. But mostly I was interested in getting out of there with as many accolades as I could so I could get into the college I wanted. One of my coworkers told me I could have girls then, or I could go to college and then get a real job and get rich and then have one of the girls really worth having. And he told me he respected my priorities.

Within a couple of months he was in prison but I took what he said to heart anyway. It sounded good. Just because he did all the wrong things didn’t mean he didn’t know what the right things were.

In college I forgot about that whole listen-to-girls thing, and the result was I had a whole lot more success getting my ramblings published than I had getting dates. There were girls I was interested in. Usually the feeling wasn’t mutual. There were girls who were interested in me. It wasn’t until after I’d graduated that I figured out what they were trying to tell me. Not that it mattered. I don’t think I would have known how to respond anyway. I knew a lot more about writing than I knew about starting relationships with girls.

I know at least once someone questioned whether I was gay during that timeframe, but that was a guy who thought The X-Files was a true story, so I didn’t let that bother me.

I’ve had a couple of post-college relationships. It’s been a while since the last of those. I don’t always understand women. I do understand guys. I understand them really well. I understand them so well that I know one thing for certain: I’ll never live with another guy for any extended length of time, unless that guy happens to be my son.

I live alone right now. A longtime friend who I don’t see very often anymore came to visit back in January, and he observed that I was content with that, but he questioned whether I was happy. He was right on both counts. But I’m picky about women. I don’t want another relationship like either of the last two. So I’m deliberately being a lot more picky this time around. And if the rumors want to fly, let them fly. I doubt they will.

So, what’s this have to do with Mike Piazza?

Well, there are a few differences between Mike Piazza and me. Mike Piazza hits a baseball a lot better than I do. I’m nowhere near as big of a crybaby about my annual salary as Mike Piazza was earlier in his career. But the biggest difference between Mike Piazza and me, as far as today’s headlines are concerned, is that gay activists don’t really have anything to gain by having me wear their badge. Yeah, I can write a little, but there are lots of gay guys who know how to write. Mike Piazza has money and notoriety and prestige.

But having walked one of the same roads Piazza walks, I have to offer up another, far less chic possibility or series of possibilities.

Maybe Mike Piazza knows a lot more about hitting a baseball than he knows about maintaining lasting, serious relationships with women.

Maybe Mike Piazza doesn’t want the distraction of a lasting, serious relationship with a woman while he’s trying to concentrate on hitting baseballs and winning a World Series and getting into the Hall of Fame. Like him or hate him, you have to admit Piazza has a lot of drive. And–gasp–some guys’ drive for success is stronger than their sex drive.

Or maybe Mike Piazza’s just being picky. All too many people marry the first person they suspect will say yes. And often, the result of that is that at some point after saying “I do,” they have to take those words back and get lawyers involved and it gets really messy. It affects every aspect of your life and turns you upside down. It would happen a whole lot less frequently if people would just be more picky.

I’ll tell you something else. None of what I’ve written about me was anybody’s business until I decided to write about it.

Likewise, none of what goes on in Mike Piazza’s relationships is anybody’s business until he decides to talk about it. And there’s every possibility that he never will.

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6 thoughts on “Leave Mike Piazza Alone

  • May 23, 2002 at 2:10 am
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    I’m not one who believes that all lifestyles are either equally healthy or the same in God’s eyes. However, that doesn’t mean that I think it my business to worry about what others are doing.

    Much as I enjoy sports, I could care less about the personal lives of stars. Those who spend a lot of time thinking about the personal lives of celebrities in any field need to get a life.

    However, in my opinion, concern about at least some aspects of personal character does have some justification in regard to electing high officials. Likewise when considering drafting a young athlete and committing millions of dollars to him. I think such considerations are mainly relevant in considering placing someone in a position of trust that they have not been in before. What aspects of character are relevant here is something about which reasonable people may disagree, I think.

    However, other than exceptions such as I noted, someone else’s personal life is none of my business. Attempting to pry into others private lives is wrong, and using public curiosity about someone like Piazza to promote the agenda of some group is reprehensible.

  • May 23, 2002 at 12:38 pm
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    I care about Piazza’s personal pref’s about as much as I care about the trail engineers personal pref’s. Wether he is or isn’t makes no difference in what kind of man he is. I’m not a big Piazza fan myself, not cause of who he dates or holds in his bed, but because of his arrogant comments made during his last “income talks”. He’s just another spoiled athlete.

  • May 23, 2002 at 4:44 pm
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    If society were to judge people who are not in relationships as gay, then half the world is gay? Come on now, at what time did innocence lose it’s meaning?

    I guess it’s sometime after the women’s liberation movement when the gay liberation movement began. “Looking for Mr. Goodbar” might’ve been the turning point, especially when San Francisco became the un-official capital for gays. Then the gay community started the honor recognition system to point out historical figures who’ve delved in sexual gratification with same sex partners, even though they were also married or had affairs with both sexes. So what that Napolean or Caesar are “gay”, but were they really? And now celebs? Should we know what are people’s preferred sexual gratification patterns? Maybe they’re into S&M or orgies. It’s ridiculous!!! Now let’s see, is Ann Heche gay, since she’s now married to a man? And what about Elton John, Sammy Davis, Jr., etc.? Being bi-sexual used to mean you were a swinger back in the 60’s. Of course, to be a true swinger, you really had to be rich and/or famous.

    Why should deviant celebrity status dictate society? Something is definitely wrong if it does. Hopefully people are smarter than the real gay community thinks. Sexual encounters are personal and should be kept private regardless. Outward discussion just proves there is an agenda and a forum to expand their base.

    We love because God first loved us.

  • May 23, 2002 at 7:46 pm
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    Maybe groups wouldn’t feel the need to get all and any exposure they can get though if society didn’t condemn and discriminate against them. I’m not talking of just gays here either.

    One of the biggest problems I see, is that society always takes the few with agendas and applies that to all of the people in that group. Most of the gay people that I know, and one is a dear friend of mine, and it’s not dave, are not into the national agenda. Just like most african-americans I know aren’t into the national agenda of the NAACP.

  • May 25, 2002 at 8:32 am
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    Piazza’s sexuality is his business.

    And life is too short and important to worry about who someone chooses to sleep with. The exceptions to this rule is if someone choose to sleep with you and you are not interested. Or if people choose to indulge in dangerous behaviour.

    That type of speculation reeks of the “idle hands” syndrome, and is fostered by those with an agenda.

    Bleh. I’m rambling.

  • May 26, 2002 at 2:06 pm
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    Apparently the same rumors circulated around George Brett 20 years ago:

    “I think that one started because people saw a guy in his 30s who was still single and was out drinking with his buddies a lot. People kind of go `Oh, he’s 32 and he’s not married. He must be gay.’ “

    Here’s the link.

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