Call of a Lifetime: Umpire Dale Scott visits Cooperstown

“It’s about getting into umpiring and some pretty funny and fun umpire stories about the things that happened in my career,” said Scott, who came out as gay in 2014. “And it’s also about my personal life, being the first active male official to come out as gay in the four major sports. How I actively led a double life for years in the minor leagues and for several years in the big leagues.”

According to Scott, when he started out as a professional umpire in the Northwest League in 1981, his first game was about two weeks after the very beginnings of the AIDS epidemic that was affecting men in San Francisco and New York.

“I was not wanting anyone to know, in my baseball life, about me because I thought it would affect my promotions. I would never get to the big leagues let alone Double-A,” Scott recalled. “But then with the HIV and AIDS crisis going on there would be guys who wouldn’t even want to work with me because there was so much fear and unknown about it.

“I wasn’t a closeted gay man. I was out at home with friends. But certainly in my baseball life I actively tried to hide that for years.”

Asked how baseball is doing with its initiatives, Scott said Billy Bean – named in 2014 the game’s first Ambassador for Inclusion – is doing “an unbelievable job.”

“What a great hire that was by Commissioner Selig. Very forward thinking for baseball. They were the first league to do something like that,” Scott said. “It’s showing that inclusion is in this game for everyone – minor league and major leagues. I think they’re doing a great job.”

As for his own role, Scott doesn’t necessarily consider himself a trailblazer or role model.

“People have said that, but I don’t necessarily look at myself like that. But I have to say that when I did come out, the response I had and the emails that I received, it did affect a lot of people’s lives,” Scott said. “It helped people and gave them some courage to maybe take another step out of that closet door. So that’s one of the reasons I wrote the book. I wasn’t going to originally, but I thought, ‘You know what? Maybe this message and this story needs to be out.’”

Scott retired from umpiring after missing most of the 2017 season due to the effects of his second concussion in nine months and fourth in five years. A big league umpire for 32 years – from 1986 to 2018 – he finished with 3,897 games, spending half his career (16 seasons) as a crew chief.

“It’s remarkable that I was a part of all that, but I am just so thankful that I had such a career,” he said. “If you would have told me in 1975 when I was 15 and I had my first game at Madison Junior High in Eugene, Ore., that, oh, by the way, you’ll have three World Series and three All-Star Games and 32 years in the big leagues, I would have just laughed because there’s no way that would have happened, but it did. And it’s just been remarkable.

“I loved baseball, but obviously I wasn’t going to be playing because I was horrible,” he added with a laugh. “So that’s why I started umpiring. And I fell in love with it. It was a chance to stay involved.”

The Oregon native attended umpire school in 1981 before embarking on a minor league career that included stops in the Northwest League (1981), California League (1982), Arizona Instructional League (1982-83), Texas League (1983-84), American Association (1984-85) and Dominican Winter League (1984-86).

Among Scott’s more memorable games were a 1988 ejection of manager Billy Martin in which the fiery skipper tossed dirt on him, working behind the plate for Scott Erickson’s 1994 no-hitter for the Twins against the Brewers and working the bases for two of Justin Verlander’s no-hitters.