Kevin McClatchy, the former owner of
the Pittsburgh Pirates, has said he lived in constant fear of being
outed as gay.
McClatchy, 49, announced his sexual
orientation in an interview with The New York Times last
weekend.
He told the paper
that rampant homophobia in baseball convinced “him that keeping his
sexual orientation hidden was best.”
In an interview
broadcast Thursday on MSNBC, McClatchy added that he lived in
constant fear of being outed.
“It was a
constant fear you live with and you were sort of on eggshells,
really. You know for the 12 years or so I was in the game I was
constantly nervous somebody would find out and in some way that would
bring my involvement down and also most important hurt the team. So,
it's a pretty frightening experience. You definitely feel isolated,
you feel alone. And that's not a great place.”
“My hope is that
any kid coming forward in 2012 will not have to have that silence
with their family or their friends or anybody else,” he
added.
At the age of 33,
McClatchy became the youngest owner of a major league baseball team.
He was the Pittsburgh Pirates' public face for 11 years, stepping
down as CEO in 2007. In April, he succeeded Gary B. Pruitt as
chairman of the board of The McClatchy Company, a newspaper empire
owned by his family.