Mets legend Mike Piazza once called a press conference to address rumors about his alleged homosexuality

Back in 2002, New York Mets legend Mike Piazza had to call a press conference to declare that he wasn't a homosexual and that the media were wrong to assume his sexuality. The press conference ended up making more people believe that he was gay and didn't quite work in the favor of the Mets dugout.

Mike Piazza played 16 years in the majors. He made his debut with the Los Angeles Dodgers before becoming one of the faces of the New York Mets lineup starting in 1998. He led them to the famous 2000 Subway World Series against the Yankees. By the time of retirement, he was a 12-time All-Star and was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2016.

A New York Post article from May 20th, 2002, started a rumour that one of the members of the Mets dugout was gay and ready to come out to the public. Their belief was that when manager Bobby Valentine remarked that baseball was then ready for gay players, he was referring to one of his own players. The article read:

"There is a persistent rumor around town that one Mets star who spends a lot of time with pretty models in clubs is actually gay and has started to think about declaring his sexual orientation."

When Mike Piazza found out that many people started taking him to be this certain someone, he came out the very next day and announced:

“I’m not gay. I’m heterosexual.”

Piazza was very respectful of his words, agreeing with his manager Valentine's words about inclusivity. However, some people from the gay community found it to be offensive. The implication to many was that being called gay required a big justification on Mike Piazza's part to clear out that he wasn't.

Mike Piazza's life after gay rumours

Mike Piazza would go on to build a family as he married wife Alicia in a church ceremony in 2005 before having two daughters, Nicoletta, born in 2007 and Paulina born in 2009. He would hang up his boots on the 20th of May, 2008, six years after the New York Post article. After retirement, he would try his hand at international management, managing Italy in the WBC.

He also chronicled the event in a 2013 autobiography where he wrote:

“I found it hugely insulting that people believed I’d go so far out of my way — living with Playmates, vacationing with actresses, showing up at nightclubs — to act out a lifestyle that would amount to a charade,” he writes. “If I was gay, I’d be gay all the way.”

Even though this was a very gross generalization of how gay people behave, to be fair to Mike, his sexuality was discussed in the public eye with neither his consent nor proper justification.