King Kaufman's Sports Daily
It doesn't matter if the hockey player charged in a murder-for-hire plot is gay, as rumored. The queer Jackie Robinson is out there, and his day is approaching.
April 19, 2004 | When I read the first stories about St. Louis Blues player Mike Danton being arrested in a murder-for-hire scheme Friday, I thought, Do we have a gay hockey player here? There was no mention of that, but the description of the relationships involved were so vague and the subject of possible homosexuality was avoided so artfully that I figured there must be something there.
After a weekend round of denials from anonymous sources close to the player I have no idea if Danton is the first active male professional athlete in North America who is known to be gay. But as always when the subject comes up, his story tells us some things about gays in sports, and even though his story is an awful one, some of those things might be good ones.
The first good thing is that nobody got hurt. The alleged scheme blew up, according to the criminal complaint, after the man who agreed to do the job went to the FBI upon realizing the whole thing wasn't a joke.
Danton was arrested at the San Jose, Calif., airport Friday, the morning after his team was eliminated from the playoffs by the Sharks. The criminal complaint, written by FBI Special Agent John Jimenez, alleges that Danton called a St. Louis friend, Katie Wolfmeyer, earlier in the week and told her that "a hitman" was coming from his native Canada to kill him over a debt. He asked Wolfmeyer, 19, if she knew anyone who would kill the man for $10,000, the complaint says, and Wolfmeyer contacted a male friend who agreed to do it.
When the friend realized Wolfmeyer was serious he contacted the FBI and became a cooperating witness. Wolfmeyer was arrested after she and the witness went to Danton's apartment Thursday night and spoke briefly to the targeted victim, who identified himself as Danton's father. He was described in the complaint as an acquaintance of Danton's.
The would-be victim then allowed the FBI to record a phone call to Danton in which he asked the player why he'd wanted to kill him. "Danton broke down and sobbed," reads a widely quoted passage in the complaint. "Danton explained that he felt backed into a corner and also felt that the acquaintance was going to leave him."
That quote, and one that described Danton and the acquaintance having a severe fight Tuesday "concerning Danton's promiscuity and use of alcohol," led to most of the speculation that Danton's relationship with his acquaintance was sexual. I don't know about you but I don't worry that friends, never mind acquaintances, might "leave me." That wording, not to mention sobbing, is reserved for love relationships. Also, the complaint describes Danton begging the acquaintance not to ruin his career by going to the Blues, and it's hard to imagine how a team's knowledge of a guy's promiscuity and use of alcohol, both very common, would ruin his career.
Of course, it's easy to imagine a player believing that being outed would ruin his career, but another of the good things coming out of this story is an indication that maybe it wouldn't.
Next page: "I wouldn't have a problem with it": The gay Jackie Robinson