Herald sports writer: I'm gay

Boston Herald sports writer Steve Buckley came out as gay in a column written for the paper Thursday, Jan. 6.

"My mother and I had already had the gay talk, during which she had told me that nothing had changed, that she loved me, asked if I was seeing anybody, and so on," Buckley wrote. "What she didn't like was the idea of me coming out publicly; she was of the opinion that it was really nobody's business, and she worried that prejudice might disrupt my career."

Buckley wrote that he decided to come out publicly after his mother had changed her mind about it, and then suffered a fatal heart attack just before Christmas.

"Now I'm not going to suggest that these past seven years have been filled with sadness and dread, for the reality is that I'm a pretty happy guy -- great family, great friends and a job I truly enjoy, even if, OK, I probably talk too much about the '67 Red Sox, the Godfather movies (I and II, but never III) and postseason pitching rotations," Buckley wrote.

"But I've put this off long enough. I haven't been fair to my family, my friends or my co-workers. And I certainly haven't been fair to myself: For too many years I've been on the sidelines of Boston's gay community but not in the game -- figuratively and literally, as I feel I would have had a pretty good career in the (gay) Beantown Softball League."

"It's my hope that from now on I'll be more involved," Buckley wrote. "I'm not really sure what I mean by being 'involved,' but this is a start: I'm gay."