Closeted bylines: gay sportswriters are plagued by the same fear as gay athletes: if they come out of the closet, it could kill their game.

For the respected sports columnist of a Southern newspaper, the decision to stay in the closet was made while he was standing at a Manhattan pay phone. Only minutes earlier the writer had been asked a decidedly loaded question, one that had never been posed to him before: "Will you go on the record about being a gay sportswriter?" Unsure at first, the sports columnist paused and asked himself countless rhetorical questions, none of which he could answer.

The writer, who is in his mid 30s, doesn't have problems acknowledging his homosexuality in just about any other context, but the world of mainstream sports is a different beast entirely. He insists that he wants to use his name, and he knows that it would hardly come as an earth-shattering surprise if he did. His editor already knows, as do many of his coworkers and some colleagues in the sportswriting community. But there are plenty of people who don't know, and they are the ones whom he depends on the most.

They are his Southern readers, many of whom hold deep religious beliefs. They laugh at his humor and admire his way with words, but would they even pick up the paper if they knew about his sexual orientation? "I see what's said on a daily basis on our editorial pages, and I really have to wonder," he says.

They are his peers in the sportswriting business, writers and editors who could interfere with his future career. "The traditional idea of the drinking, womanizing sportswriter still exists to some extent," he says, "and I'm not sure how they would feel about an openly gay man in the boys' club."

And they are the athletes he covers, athletes whom San Francisco Chronicle columnist Scott Ostler, once a sports column writer, calls "some of the most childish, unenlightened people you will ever come across."

These are the same concerns that keep another sportswriter, this one at a major metropolitan newspaper, from discussing his homosexuality on the record. "Part of me wants to do it, but part of me thinks I can only be hurt by doing it," he says.

And they are the same concerns, it seems, that have contributed to the startling inability of those in professional sports--and the journalists who cover them--to mirror the rest of society: No current professional male basketball, baseball, hockey, or football player has publicly acknowledged his homosexuality, and the same is true for male coaches, managers, and general managers.

"It's like every person working in and around team sports today, everyone who has to go into the locker room, is just waiting by the edge of file water, waiting for someone else to jump in first," the Southern writer says. "The problem is, no one knows how hot the water is. Part of me thinks that if I used my name, hardly anyone would care. Another part of me thinks it could hurt me and I could be cut off from people I need to deal with in my job. I just don't know what to do."

At least three sports editors have already made their decisions. Two are openly gay men: Jim Buzinski, sports editor of the Press-Telegram in Long Beach, Calif., and Dan Wine, assistant sports editor of the Herald-Sun in Durham, N.C. And one is an out lesbian: Holly Woolard, sports editor of the Marin Independent Journal in Novato, Calif.

But the unifying factor among these three journalists is that they are editors, so they aren't required to develop close ties with athletes or enter the locker room. When many female sportswriters first sought to gain acceptance in the 1970s and early '80s, athletes reacted in a variety of ways, from tolerance to avoidance to outward hostility.

"There is this absurd misconception that a female sportswriter or a gay man is going to get some kind of perverse pleasure out of seeing these athletes naked," the Southern writer says. "Well, anyone who has gone into the locker room knows that it's hardly a place that is going to turn you on. It smells. There're jockstraps and dirty towels piled all over the place."

Woolard, who covered sports as an out lesbian, is the only one of the trio of openly gay sports editors who has extensive experience in the locker room. She reports more bias based on her gender than on her sexual orientation.

"Even though I really do fit the stereotype of the lesbian athlete and sports lover perfectly, I can't remember ever getting any grief for it, even when I was covering San Jose State [University] football," Woolard says. "For starters, sports and lesbians go hand in hand. It may be a stereotype, but it's true. It's different for lesbians because it's known that we are everywhere in sports, from athletes to coaches to just about every level in athletic departments in universities. It's not a shock to see a lesbian in the locker room. It's kind of expected."

Woolard says she knows of at least a half-dozen openly lesbian sportswriters working in the business today, but when asked for their names, she declines to give them, which makes one wonder: Just how open are they?

The many factors involved in coming out in the sports world have left one young male sportswriter, an intern at a large New England newspaper, frustrated and unsure whether to come out. The writer, who is in his early 20s, was out in college and as sports editor of his school newspaper, but his current job has forced him to take a huge step back.

"I am out to my parents, my friends, everywhere except the workplace," he says. "I mean, it's really kind of absurd. It's a strange situation, and I don't know what to do next." In addition to career advancement concerns, he faces the more immediate problem of dealing with coworkers prone to outward displays of homophobia. "One night everyone on the desk was talking about athletes who are rumored to be gay, and some of the guys were just ruthless," he says. "I mean, the anger and ridicule they had toward these supposedly gay athletes was incredible."

Most of the sportswriters interviewed for this story agree that an openly gay sportswriter could succeed in covering some sports while encountering serious problems in others. The most difficult athletes to work with, most agree, would be baseball players, whom San Francisco Chronicle sportswriter Tim Keown calls "aggressively heterosexual." Many say basketball would be the best bet out of the four top sports, since most of the players are college-educated.

"It really would depend on a lot of factors, from how open the reporter is to what kind of guys are on the team that that person is covering," says Teddy Greenstein, who covers the Chicago White Sox for the Chicago Tribune. "I think some guys would have a big problem with it, and others wouldn't care at all. It would take a strong person to be able to deal with it, though--someone who wouldn't put up with any of the players' crap."

Denizet-Lewis is a features writer at the Contra Costa Times in Walnut Creek, Calif.