I have a pretty interesting story I like to tell about NYC weatherman Sam Champion.

It happened sometime when I was in high school around '99 or '00, give or take. My uncle came over saying he had the craziest story. He was an NYPD officer who responded to a late night domestic dispute the night before. He got to the house and Sam Champion answered the door. He explained that the neighbors had called the cops over fighting and he just wanted to make sure everything was ok. Sam kept insisting everything was fine but my uncle wanted to talk to his wife or girlfriend. Instead of a woman, my uncle found Mike Piazza - the perennial MVP candidate who now played for the Mets.

Sometimes I think it's hard for younger people to understand just how drastically views changed over homosexuality. Later that night, my dad and I laughed at what my uncle told us because being gay was such a no-no that my uncle couldn't understand why Champion and Piazza would be at home together in the middle of the night. It just made no sense to him but we obviously knew what was going on.

I didn't care if either was gay so I didn't think too much of the story immediately after that but, like a year or so later, stories that Mike Piazza and Sam Champion were in a relationship together started popping up in the tabloids and eventually made their way into real journalism. It became such a big story that Piazza eventually had to hold a news conference to address it where he flat out denied it. Years later Champion would come out as gay but as far as I'm aware he has never addressed rumors of a relationship with Piazza. I don't remember who but a teammate of Piazza's would eventually tell the New York Times that they were in a relationship.

My uncle is not a guy who makes things up so I knew it was true when the tabloids picked it up.