The Umpire Is Out: Calling the Game and Living My True Self

Dale Scott’s career as a professional baseball umpire spanned nearly forty years, including thirty-three in the Major Leagues, from 1985 to 2017. He worked exactly a thousand games behind the plate, calling balls and strikes at the pinnacle of his profession, interacting with dozens of other top-flight umpires, colorful managers, and hundreds of players. Scott has enough stories about his career on the field to fill a dozen books, but what makes Scott’s book truly different is his unique perspective as the only umpire in the history of professional baseball to come out as gay during his career, after decades of maintaining a public facade of straightness. He navigated this obstacle course at a time when his MLB career was just taking off--and when North America was consumed by the AIDS epidemic.

Scott’s story isn’t only about leading a double life, then opening himself up to the world and discovering a new generosity of spirit. It’s also a baseball story, filled with insights and memorable anecdotes that come so naturally from someone who spent decades among the world’s greatest baseball players, managers, and games. Scott’s story is fascinating both for his umpiring career and for his being a pioneer for LGBTQ people within baseball and across sports.

Dale Scott’s career as a Major League umpire included 3 World Series, 3 All-Star Games, 6 League Championship Series, 12 Division Series, and more than 90 postseason games. He lives in Palm Springs, California, with Michael, his husband, and their yellow Lab, Wylie. Rob Neyer serves as commissioner of the West Coast League and has written or cowritten seven books, including Power Ball: Anatomy of a Modern Baseball Game. Billy Bean (1964-2024) was vice president and special assistant to the commissioner of Major League Baseball.