Correction: A previous version of this column misspelled Dan Iassogna’s last name.

Big league umps joke that on their bad nights they’ll need to “get the fire hoses” to douse the angry screaming dugouts. The night that the Yankees’ Roger Clemens went for his 300th win in 2003, a nervous rookie ump, Dan Iassogna, who had just been called up from the minors, worked home plate. In the second inning, a Cub was knocked unconscious in a collision. An ambulance drove to home plate. A shaken Iassogna went to his veteran crew chief Dale Scott for commiseration.

“Can you believe I’ve got fire trucks on the field during my plate job?” Iassogna said.

“Yeah,” deadpanned Scott, “but I didn’t think they’d be here this early.”

This anecdote, from a profile of Scott in September’s Referee magazine, gives a sense of the quick-witted, burly crew chief who’s a familiar baseball face who’s worked 19 postseason series. The subscription-only magazine, circulation 45,000, asked Scott for photos to run with the story of his 29 years in the majors. Suddenly, he faced a problem of conscience and good faith.

The story quoted Scott’s friends all the way back to junior high school. How could he allow all these people to be mentioned but not his life partner of the last 28 years whom he’d married in 2013? So, Scott sent a photo of himself with his spouse. The caption began: “Scott and his longtime companion, Michael Rausch . . .”

In a March 2014 photo provided by Dale Scott, Scott, left, sits with his spouse Michael Rausch on a plane going to Australia. (AP photo/released by Dale Scott) (AP/AP)

One reader realized that Scott had voluntarily revealed that he is gay and called “Outsports.com.” One reader. The Web site contacted Scott for a story. Scott, 55, said he was working the playoffs and didn’t want to be a distraction. Please call back after the season.

In what may be the most civilized handling of a story in the Internet age, Outsports did a fine profile this past week on Scott , the first openly gay male to umpire or referee in any of the four major pro sports. Scott made it clear that Major League Baseball has known he was gay since the 1990s, and many fellow umpires, and others in baseball, knew for at least 15 years — and nobody cared. Rausch has long had an MLB ID card, was listed as Scott’s same-sex domestic partner and had MLB spousal benefits years before they were married. Baseball acted right. It just never said so.

“For 29 years, Dale Scott has been an outstanding major league umpire,’’ Commissioner Bud Selig said this week after Scott’s story became more public. “To his friends and colleagues throughout the game, Dale is universally regarded as a class act. All of us at MLB are very proud of him, just as we have always been.’’

In what may be the most encouraging response to such a story, nobody outside of baseball cared either. Or, rather, nobody went nuts.

The Outsports piece began with aspects of Scott’s personality that are as pertinent to who he is as his sexuality, significant though that is. He was a well-known disc jockey on the most popular radio station in Eugene, Ore., when he was in high school; he has a radio/TV degree and probably could have been a broadcaster or perhaps even a comedian. He’s been an Oregon Ducks football fan since childhood, owns two black labs, loves history and politics, and seldom misses “Survivor.” He and Rausch clicked because, “We’re opposites. He’s an artist. He’s very creative, I am not. The old opposites-attract thing fits. It obviously works for us.”

Perhaps the clearest window into Scott is that he couldn’t tolerate a story done on his life that left out the person he married. So, he and Rausch decided the picture would do their quiet speaking.

“Obviously, when I sent that picture, I realized that it could open a Pandora’s box,” he told Outsports. “This is not going to be some huge flashing news to Park Avenue (MLB headquarters), but I also didn’t want to be making some coming out story, some banner headline. . . . It’s not a shock to MLB management . . . and it’s not a shock to the umpire staff. If it would have been, I don’t think I would have done it.”

He added: “I am extremely grateful that Major League Baseball has always judged me on my work and nothing else. And that’s the way it should be.”

The first 10 years of his career, Scott said, he would have been “horrified” by a story that he was gay. But “unprovoked,” other umpires began approaching him to say, “I want you to know I would walk on the field with you any day.” Great guy, great ump, couldn’t care less about your personal life. “Basically, ‘I know and I don’t care.’ That meant a lot to me,” Scott said.

Scott has concerns. “It’s still a headline, look at Michael Sam,” he said, of the first openly gay football player to try to make an NFL team. “People scream at me because I’m an umpire. The last thing I want is people screaming at me because I’m gay. I’m an umpire who happens to be gay.

“If this motivates somebody somewhere who’s an amateur umpire and is trying to get a job but maybe has doubts because of their sexuality and this gives them some confidence, that’s great.”

Major League Baseball has had a gay umpire for 29 years, has known it for roughly 20, didn’t care, doesn’t care and has recognized the rights of Scott and his partner for years.

This story came, and appears to have gone, in less than one 24/7 news cycle. As it should. That’s the good news. The bad news? For once, there doesn’t seem to be any.

For more by Thomas Boswell, visit

washingtonpost.com/boswell.