Bobby Blair’s “Hiding Inside the Baseline” is the compelling, must-read story about a young boy from a poor family — incredibly supportive mother, alcoholic father — who begins working towards becoming one of the top tennis prospects in the country.
Hard enough, right? Add to this challenge Blair’s growing awareness, from the age of 13 years old, that he is gay. So for all its great detail about the tennis world, “Hiding Inside the Baseline” becomes a story primarily about the three simple words it would take Blair more than 30 years to say to the tennis community: “I am gay.” His struggle becomes whether to hide the fact that he is gay, no matter how great the emotional, the psychic costs. Should I hide the truth from my friends, including two serious girlfriends (one in college and one after college)? Should I hide the truth from my teammates, my coach, the media, etc.? Given the costs, and very real risks, of coming out at the time (the 1980s and ‘90s), many would have chosen to live a lie in order to protect their livelihood. They would have damaged their own integrity, hurt others around them, hid the truth from everyone.
Nick Bollettieri calls you over to play some young unknown kid named Andre Agassi, who kept smacking bullets for winners. You become the #6 player in the country playing for the University of Arkansas. You have the biggest win of your career when you beat Pat Cash the year before he won Wimbledon, then you begin to panic, avoiding the media at all costs, trying to hide everything about your private life. As he grew older, the only place Blair felt he could fully relax was within pockets of the largely hidden gay community. Like many other gay males back then, he came to live an intense double life. He was “Mark from Florida” at night, “Bobby Blair” the tennis player during the day. He also saw firsthand how many young gay men suffered from being outcasts in their society, often escaping by turning to alcohol, drugs, and unhealthy sexual relationships.
In his foreword, Bollettieri writes: “The timing is perfect for Bobby’s book. It might serve as a catalyst for another generation of youngsters to trust that they can reach their potential if they only remain true to themselves.” With the inclusion of almost 50 letters of support from friends and family and colleagues, many of them quite moving, Blair makes it clear that “coming out with pride and dignity would have happened for me years ago if I knew I would have been this loved and supported.” In sharing his story, then, Blair hopes to “build a bridge between two parties that hardly know each exist."
