Dave Pallone can look back on a memorable career in baseball. At age 26, he became the third-youngest umpire in major-league history. He worked the 50th anniversary All-Star Game and a National League Championship Series. He was behind the plate when Pete Rose tied Ty Cobb’s hit record, and when Nolan Ryan recorded his 4,000th strikeout. (Pallone still has a shattered protective cup, blasted by a Ryan fastball, as a souvenir.)
To most fans, however, Pallone’s name summons up only one memory: his famous, hackles-raised, on-field facedown with Rose in 1988. A few months later, under pressure, Pallone left the game. Not because of his confrontation with Rose, though that’s the way many remember it. In the end, major-league baseball could not deal with having an openly gay umpire.
Pallone, who has set up a temporary residence in Nashville, wrote a best-selling memoir about his life in the game. More accurately, it was a story about his double life, his relish for the spotlight and his fear that its glare would expose his sexual identity.
As his remarkably candid autobiography, Behind the Mask, makes clear, Pallone can recount funny stories about life in baseball. Like the time in a forlorn minor-league outpost when he and his road-weary umpiring partner, perhaps inspiring a scene in , let the stadium sprinklers run overnight to create a rainout the next day. Or the time when pitcher Joe Niekro, as a prank, had him “arrested” by FBI agents. He can share fascinating vignettes about the interplay among umpires, players and managers.
But, most of all, Pallone can tell you what it’s like to maintain a dangerous secret in one of the sternest bastions of heterosexuality—a secret kept throughout the game. “There are gay players, gay umpires and gay management,” Pallone says. “I could field a major league all-star team with people I know who are gay.”
Yet, even today, there are no openly gay players. Or umpires. Just pragmatically secretive and fearful ones. Just as you’d never guess, from his soft voice and gentle demeanor, that a volcanic temper bubbles inside Pallone, you’d be surprised to learn the identities of baseball’s gay community. Maintaining their double lives is a game within the game they all learn to play.
Pallone entered the game of professional baseball, literally, with a strike against him. He arrived in the majors as he exited: amid a swirl of controversy, as a replacement when the umpire’s union struck in 1989. He was capable enough to remain after the strike was settled, but he was shunned, professionally and personally, by many of his colleagues, who viewed him as a scab.
As he gradually gained respect, Pallone felt more comfortable as an umpire—and more comfortable about edging toward the closet door. He discreetly visited gay bars. He had an affair with a ballplayer. He revealed to two fellow umpires, Paul Runge and Ed Montague, that he was gay. But, by necessity, most of his private life remained in shadow.
“I lived a double life for 36 years,” Pallone remembers. “I don’t want to go back to that again.”
By the time of his famous incident with Rose—the Reds manager bumped him twice, Pallone erupted and allegedly poked Rose—there were persistent rumors about Pallone’s homosexuality, and he had been linked, falsely, to a juvenile gay sex ring. Meanwhile, his on-field volatility, which polarized opinions about him, and lingering resentment from union umpires made him an easy target. Although an investigation of the sex ring cleared Pallone of sexual or criminal wrongdoing, Baseball Commissioner Bart Giamatti, who had been a father figure to him, pressured Pallone to retire. As recompense, baseball provided him with a financial settlement.
Now he hopes to return to the game—as baseball’s first umpire to call himself out—and he hopes that closeted players will join him in the open. He doesn’t expect the closet doors to open soon. Not with endorsement dollars at stake. “But if they came out today,” Pallone figures, “nothing would happen. Their teammates would still be concerned with winning. And no fan is not going to applaud a gay player who hits a grand slam in the bottom of the ninth.”
In Nashville this fall, Pallone has been working on a second book, tentatively titled Outcry. It’s a sequel he never expected to write. But he never expected the outpouring of encouragement and thanks he received from homosexuals, from their family members, from sympathetic straights and even from erstwhile homophobes.
“When [the letters] first started to come, I was able to answer them all,” Pallone recalls. “Then—boom—they all hit at once. I’ve received well over 50,000 letters.”
What amazed Pallone even more than the volume of letters was their content. Though he might have anticipated a barrage of hate mail, he says all but three letters were positive. Three out of 50,000.
Many were like the letter he received from a mother who wrote that she at last could understand her gay sons after reading Behind the Mask. Others were from gays and lesbians—including priests and ministers—still closeted behind masks of their own.
A few letters, Pallone says, were like the one from a married man who had hated him. “After he read the book, he wrote and said he wanted to shake my hand.”
But the most poignant responses have come from homosexuals who had contemplated suicide because they feared the consequences of coming out. “One of the biggest things I learned from writing the book is how many young people attempt to take their own lives,” Pallone says—“over 500,000 each year. It disturbs me that so many would try it, and that so many would do it because of who they are.
“It’s very difficult to live this life we have, let alone two. They feel like no one’s there to be there for them.”
Pallone’s story has saved at least one life. “One man wrote that he was at home watching TV and happened to catch me on Donahue,” Pallone says. “As he listened to what I had to say—with his loaded gun on the coffee table—he said he decided that his life was worth living.”
will be released by Nashville’s Eggman Publishing. Meanwhile, Pallone continues to speak on college campuses. This month, he began a new lecture tour with one of his self-described role models, Martina Navratilova, about how they coped with being gay and in the public eye.
But Pallone hasn’t relinquished his dream of returning to baseball and umpiring in the World Series. “I’m glad I moved on [from baseball],” he says. “But now I think it’s time to get back on the field. I’ve done nothing wrong. I should be able to be reinstated.
“It would be difficult, I think. But if I were to be on Paul Runge’s crew—and he’s already said he would accept me back—the turmoil would be short-lived.” A few moments later, outlining a scenario he’s often played in his mind, he muses, “You think there’d be a media circus if Pete Rose were reinstated and brought out the lineup card when I was at home plate?”
Yet while the doors to baseball remain barred, however, his imposed retirement has opened a path to perhaps an even deeper fulfillment. “I get great satisfaction when someone says, ‘I read your book and it helped me,’ ” Pallone says. “I reached my World Series when I met a young man who told me that I had saved his life. That was my World Series ring.”
How it looks from the La-Z-Boy
South Carolina 42, Vanderbilt 13
Kentucky 16, Georgia 13
Alabama 31, Ole Miss 14
LSU 43, North Texas 10
Auburn 52, Western Michigan 7
Nebraska 34, Kansas State 17
Northwestern 17, Wisconsin 13
Notre Dame 34, Southern Cal 28
