MLB umpire calls for self-respect at gay awareness week speech

Brian Foster Arizona Daily Wildcat Former major league baseball umpire Dave Pallone signs an autograph for veterinary science sophomore Juan Acevedo yesterday in the Arizona Ballroom. Pallone spoke to students about being gay in professional sports.

"You can't expect people to understand you just like that. It takes 18 to 20 years to understand yourself," said former umpire Dave Pallone, who spoke in the Arizona Ballroom of the Memorial Student Union.

Pallone was a professional baseball umpire for 10 years. In 1987 he was ranked in the top 10 of umpires, but in 1988 his contract was not renewed because of his sexual orientation, he said.

Pallone said he had to choose between his personal life and his first love, baseball.

"No one should have to make that choice. Choosing between what makes you happy and your life," Pallone said.

When he lost his job, he said, he didn't know what to do.

One day he started writing his autobiography, not for anyone else but for himself, Pallone told a crowd of 20 people. The result, Behind the Mask: My Double Life in Baseball , became a New York Times best-seller. Pallone added he has received over 80,000 letters of thanks since the book was published in 1990.

"Your book was able to give me a better understanding of my family member," Pallone said, generalizing the letters' contents. He said he had found a new calling: to help as many people as possible.

He said the best advice for any student is, "Be true to who you are. You can do anything with your life."

What Pallone most regrets about leaving baseball is that he didn't have a chance to call a World Series game and get a ring, he said.

Pallone said he received a different kind of "World Series ring" when he was walking out of an auditorium and saw a student standing against a wall. Pallone asked him what was wrong. The student replied that he had decided not to take his own life after reading Pallone's book.

After a brief speech, Pallone opened the floor to the audience for a question and answer session. On the issue of today's gay athletes, Pallone said that they fear losing money more than the potential disclosure of their sexual orientation.

Pallone said that players' sexual orientations are general knowledge among the teams, but that if the knowledge were made public, the fans' reactions could lower game attendance. That, in turn, could lead to lower salaries.

"If a player has a great season, someone like George Steinbrenner isn't going to fire him. They don't admit to their sexual orientation because they don't want to lose the money," he said.

Pallone said many college athletes, afraid of losing scholarships if they come out, feel comfortable discussing issues with him because he's been down that road before.

Students said they were pleased with Pallone's candid advice and found that he was easy to relate to because he made the issues so personal.

"There have been few positive role models in my life. It's great that he is getting out here," said senior William Vandergriff.

Some students said the speech was less a political talk than the story of one person's life.

"The stories were very interesting. They were able to put a lot of issues in perspective without seeming too liberal," said psychology senior Mark Templin.