PITTSBURGH PIRATES FORMER OWNER COMES OUT AS GAY SAYS "I WANT TO START A DIALOG"

Challenging: The 49-year-old, pictured, said that while his decision was 'challenging', he wanted to 'start a dialogue' about sexuality in professional sports

The former owner of the Pittsburgh Pirates has revealed he is gay, claiming he kept his sexuality under wraps for years because of homophobic slurs in the sporting world.

Kevin McClatchy, the controlling owner of the baseball team from 1996-2007, came out officially today in an effort to 'start a dialogue' about sexuality in professional sports.

The 49-year-old said no athlete has admitted they're gay while playing baseball and coaches, managers and executives are equally afraid to speak openly about their sexuality.

'You’re not going to solve any problem until you start a dialogue,' he said in an interview. 'And there’s no dialogue right now.'

McClatchy, now the board chairman at the McClatchy Company newspaper chain, which owns more than two dozen newspapers including the Sacramento Bee and The Miami Herald, said he felt he had to choose between his career in sports and being honest about his personal life - he couldn't do both.

McClatchy chose sports, and in February 1996, at the age of 33, he became the youngest owner in major league baseball, snapping up the Pittsburgh Pirates with a group of investors. 

For the next 11 years, he was the team’s managing general partner, chief executive officer and public face.

But according to The Times, he took pains not to let his players, the owners of other teams or anyone beyond a small group of family and friends know he was gay. Frequent homophobic slurs thrown around on the field and in the locker room convinced him that keeping his sexual orientation hidden was best.

But his secret took a toll, he said.

Pro sports: Kevin McClatchy, pictured in 1996, said no athlete in professional sports has come out while playing

'I think I was more paranoid, for sure, about people,' he told The Times. 'And suspicious, definitely. And angry.' 

He had a few serious relationships with men during his career in baseball but most were strained, he told The Times, until he left the sport. McClatchy has been with his current partner, Jack Basilone, who shares his home, for the past four years.

Longtime NBA executive Rick Welts, then with the Phoenix Suns, shined a light on sexuality in sports last year when he announced he was gay. 

But McClatchy says that, over the past four decades, 'Tens of thousands of people have played either professional minor league baseball or major league baseball. Not one has come out and said that they’re gay while they’re playing.'

He told The Times that the sport’s caretakers ended racial segregation before some other segments of society did but there wasn't the same will to overturn the homophobic nature of professional sports.

'I don’t think they equate breaking the color barrier with Jackie Robinson to, 'Hey, by the way, we’ve never had one player announce they’re gay while playing baseball,'' he said. 

As well as wanting to break the sexuality barriers in baseball, McClatchy told The Times that coming out in public was something he had to do personally, and nearing his 50th birthday felt like the right time.

'I’m sure people will criticize me because I came out later, and I should have come out while I was in baseball and in the thick of it,' he said.

'I could find excuses for why not to do this article until I’m blue in the face. (But) I’ve got a birthday coming up where I’m turning old,' he said, referring to his 50th, in January. 

'I’ve spent 30 years... not talking about my personal life, lying about my personal life.

'There’s no way I want to go into the rest of my existence and ever have to hide my personal life again.'