The experience has been satisfying and exhilarating, if not particularly profitable, they said, in a daylong interview in Los Angeles, where both men live. It has been baffling, too.

More than 3,500 men are on active rosters in Major League Baseball, the N.F.L., the N.B.A. and the N.H.L. Even if only 1 percent of them are gay — and studies suggest the figure is several times higher — at least several dozen would be on those rosters at any one time.

“If you had asked me, 10 years ago, if there would be an out major, active male athlete, I’d have given it a 99 percent chance,” Zeigler said. “That we’re now talking whether it will happen in the next 10 years surprises me.”

Still, Outsports has had life-changing ramifications. A year ago, Hudson Taylor was a nationally ranked wrestler at the University of Maryland and an outspoken supporter of gay rights. He is heterosexual, and he preached tolerance to teammates and wore a Human Rights Campaign sticker on his headgear, which attracted local attention.

Buzinski, a former sports editor of The Long Beach Press-Telegram, wrote about Taylor for Outsports. The story was recently nominated for a Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation award for outstanding digital journalism article.

But it had a more lasting effect on Taylor. He received 500 e-mail responses, he said, some which brought him to tears with accounts of homophobic run-ins and tortured decisions about revealing homosexuality.

It was a “tipping point,” Taylor said. He now devotes himself to gay rights advocacy, recently establishing a Web site, athleteally.com, where visitors are encouraged to sign a pledge to help end sexual and gender discrimination in sports. (Since Jan. 1, more than 2,300 have signed.)