America is often defined by our sporting events, tailgate parties, pep rallies and the ever lasting question, "Who is Number 1?" At times, our social lives revolve around rooting for favorite celebrity athletes, our alma maters, a city’s athletic teams and even our children as they participate in community athletic programs. For these events, we’ve designed outfits, mastered the ancient art of face painting, passed down chili recipes for generations and bought more booze than we probably should. Sports are part of the fabric of American life.

Historically, members of the LGBT community have been left out of this hoopla. Unlike the African-American, Jewish and Hispanic communities, we have no have players like Jackie Robinson, Sandy Koufax or Fernando Venezuela to break down the walls of homophobia. I can only imagine how many dozens of baseball, football, NASCAR and other sports stars played their game in the closet, denying joy to thousands upon thousands of young Americans who would have loved to have them as a role model.

We have seen progress as stars in a number of professions have come out, including a number of female athletes. The barriers for most men, however, are still rigid, especially in professional football and baseball. Of course, we have had pioneers like David Kopay and Corey Johnson, who came out to his high school team. Also, we have had breakthroughs in tennis, swimming, skating and other sports. It is just a matter of time before we cheer an openly gay player in Yankee Stadium!

A delightful and fun book has been released to fill this vacuum. Cyd Zeigler, Jr. and Jim Buzinski, authors of Outsports Revolution, have given us nearly 300 pages of information on gays and lesbians in sports. As someone who enjoys sports, I had a ball going through this wonderfully laid out book. It deals with some big myths about who is in the closet and who is out of the closet. In short, concise and tailored sections for fun reading, you can learn about great historical figures like the founder of the Gay Games, Tom Waddell, or how to cook Jim's Great Chili Recipe.

Zeigler and Buzinski say Outsports Revolution is more like a community with different contributors and great photographs showing our history in sports. It is one of those easy going books you can browse through with a friend, pick up and put down at leisure and find great little tidbits of information each time you open it. The two authors are the co-founders of www.outsports.com and are fully committed to this interesting topic. They even share how to organize an "out" sports league in your own community.

The book, however, is not without a serious side, and talks about the barriers and bigotry that face many players in the sporting world today. They even have a chapter called "The Good Guys and The Bad Guys," which lists those who have moved us forward and those who have held the LGBT community back in the sporting world. There is a great mix of seriousness and fun.

My only regret is that I would have loved to see an index and a little more detail about heroes such as Tom Waddell, Jerry Smith and Billie Jean King. I hope that Zeigler and Buzinski have another book planned profiling our pioneers.

What I can tell you is that I found myself picking up Outsports Revolution all weekend and reading sections of it. It is great fun, good knowledge and long overdue. For all you jocks and fans out there, pick it up. You will be glad you did.