Rob Foldy-USA TODAY Sports

ESPN The Magazine’s upcoming baseball preview issue asked 110 players anonymously about various issues. Among the findings, according to Buzzfeed:

Asked “do you know of any gay players?” only 5% (six players) said yes. “Yes, but that’s as far as I want to go, even if this is anonymous,” said one National Leaguer.

These kinds of polls (similar to one the magazine asked athletes about gay marriage and one asking college football players about gay teammates ) are not statistically scientific, so it’s impossible to project this out to all 750 Major Leaguers. We don’t know, for example, if these six know six separate gay players or the same guy.

The reticence of the one player to talk about the issue, even anonymously, is not surprising since we have heard this before. When former college football captain Brian Sims, who is gay, talked in general terms about knowing of gay players, one of his sources was furious with him, even though he disclosed nothing specific about any player.

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