There’s No Need to Throw Any Coming-Out Parties

Consider the source, but the New York Post on Monday implied that Mike Piazza is gay. Whether that is good or bad reporting is a debate for the Columbia Journalism Review.

The question here is, why does the sexual preference of Piazza or any other athlete matter?

Apparently it does matter to some supposed sports fans who rushed to call supposed sports talk radio shows--in New York, in Los Angeles and many other places in between--to discuss the supposed subject. As if any caller or host had any first-hand information.

It doesn’t matter because Piazza and Met Manager Bobby Valentine and many other Met players said it doesn’t matter.

Piazza handled with grace and some humor the hubbub that followed the gossip item in the Post. Before batting practice Tuesday in Philadelphia, Piazza stood in front of reporters to say that, because people were asking, he is heterosexual but that, in his mind, it wouldn’t matter if there are gay players in the Met clubhouse.

And there almost certainly are gay baseball players, football players, hockey players and every other kind of player. The players don’t much care about the sexuality of their teammates.

This is not the old days. Baseball players don’t hang out together, go to dinner together every night, travel cross-country on trains together. They make so much money, have so many agents, trainers, tailors, hairstylists, dieticians and personal coaches around them that most have no real interest in the personal lives of the men who bat behind them or dress next to them.

There almost certainly will be men and women in this country, teammates and fans, who will not accept gay players, just as there are stupid people who hold unfounded biases against African Americans or Arabs or Jews or Catholics or atheists. There are even gay men and women who resent married couples. As long as people have different beliefs or racial characteristics there will be someone to find fault.

But there will be a large majority of men and women in this country who will judge other men and women only on what counts.

With an athlete, that would be performance on the field. As long as an athlete’s personal conduct is not illegal or does not compromise his performance, fans and teammates don’t care.

Most Dodger fans will always resent Fox, corporate owners of the team, for trading Piazza and will always wish for his return, whatever his sexuality.

Most Laker fans, no matter their personal moral beliefs, do not condemn Shaquille O’Neal because he is not married to the mothers of his children. It is not their duty to judge O’Neal on his personal life, only on his ability to dunk, get rebounds and make or miss free throws.

Last year the editor of Out magazine, a publication geared to gays, wrote a column about his supposed boyfriend, a major league baseball player for an East Coast team who allegedly was too afraid to go public with his sexuality. (This player, according to the writer, was not the star of the team, thus eliminating Piazza from speculation).

Mostly the reaction to this article was that it was a sad way for a marginal publication to get publicity and that the only person who had a problem was the author.

Why should any athlete, or any person, have to discuss his or her sexuality anyway?

Just as a heterosexual athlete doesn’t come to work every day and give interviews to say “I’m heterosexual,” a gay athlete doesn’t need to come to work every day and announce “I’m

gay.” There is no need for us to hear it, no need for the athlete to say it.

Until an athlete is ostracized in a clubhouse because of his sexuality or has a pitch thrown at his head because of his sexuality, that sexuality is of no public interest.

Americans are mostly fair and accepting. We understand the lines of right and wrong, of what is our business and what isn’t. Why should we think our athletes are any more or less accepting? Most of us don’t care about the sexual orientation of our next-door neighbor. Or of our leadoff hitter. The only scandal here is that anyone would.

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Diane Pucin can be reached at diane.pucin@latimes.com