Twenty-third in a new series
Billy Bean’s recent death recalls his life and, for me, Major League Baseball’s continually evolving stance toward inclusion. He passed away at age 60 on August 6, 2024 after an 11-month battle with acute myeloid leukemia.
Our game reflects the nation whose pastime it is — sometimes trailing America, more often leading it. Big-league baseball excluded African Americans from 1885 through 1946, though not Jews or Catholics or Italians or Slavs. By way of a “gentleman’s agreement,” it may also have shunned players or umpires who happened to be female or gay.
With Branch Rickey in 1947, Jackie Robinson had forced America to confront the falsehood that baseball could truly be a national pastime while intentionally excluding anyone. In 2013, MLB had issued its first policy explicitly prohibiting players from acting against teammates or opponents based on their sexual orientation. A year later, Commissioner Bud Selig named Billy Bean its Ambassador for Inclusion, a job that included providing training and guidance on issues linked to sexual orientation.
Bean redefined his newly created role over the years, becoming MLB’s Senior Vice President for Diversity, Equity & Inclusion and Special Assistant to the Commissioner. Among his goals was to ease the way for an openly gay player to earn a roster spot without being a “gay Jackie Robinson” — a future Hall of Famer who for years had to endure racial virulence because of a pact he had made with Rickey.
Like most men who would become major leaguers, Billy Bean was a star player at every level. That he played for three teams in six years in a nondescript way is not what makes him a pioneer in the history of the game, nor is the fact that he came out of the closet after his playing days were done. Former Dodger outfielder Glenn Burke had done this, too (see: https://bit.ly/47CXNC4), as did NFL running back Dave Kopay.
Bean’s heroism was simply to be himself: openly gay and an inspiration to countless players — and fans — who may have viewed themselves as lone and lonely outsiders. Baseball, he had been assured, had room for them all. His position enabled him to move MLB, and all those who cared about it, beyond tolerance to pride. Today most major league teams — all but one in fact — host Pride Nights, which are designed to let LGBTQ fans know that they are welcome at the ballpark.
I wrote this when Commissioner Selig appointed Bean at the All-Star Game in 2014:
I am a true believer in the power of baseball to serve as a beacon to the nation and, increasingly, the world. Our game is about equal opportunity whatever the color of one’s skin; an open door for people of differing national origin, and an understanding that everyone, whatever their gender or sexual orientation, will play by the same set of rules. How different from the customs and practices of everyday life! Today has been a big day for baseball and for America….
For his part, Bean was levelheaded. “It’s a tremendous honor for me personally to be asked back into baseball,” he said. “Basically for the same reason I left it.”
Who was Billy Bean, apart from what he would become? “For nine years,” Bean said in 1999 to Bob Lipsyte, “I felt as though I had one foot in the major leagues and one on a banana peel.” He had begun his professional career in 1986 at Glens Falls in the Detroit Tigers’ chain, then moved on up the majors and briefly Japan before leaving the game in 1995. He did not open up to former teammates about his sexuality until 1999, when Tim Layana, a former Cincinnati Reds pitcher and Bean’s college roomie at Loyola Marymount, was killed in a car accident. No one from their circle of old buddies had Bean’s telephone number.
“I missed the funeral of my college roommate, one of my best friends,” Bean said. “Tim would have understood if I had told him. I began to think, I’m not living some horrible existence, I’m proud of my life. Where do I finally draw the line and just say, ‘Accept me or don’t?’”
When Bean, as MLB’s roving ambassador, talked to teams, he spoke about more than his sexuality and his struggles. “A lot of people forget our players are 19, 20, 21 years old. They’re world-class baseball players, and they haven’t had time to learn all the ways of the world,” he once explained. “We really prioritize messaging on life skills, domestic violence awareness and counseling about relationships. The inclusive conversation is a wonderful part of that comprehensive message.”
In 2017, Bean was put in charge of MLB’s anti-bullying efforts in addition to his other work. For all of it, he had ample credentials. He was a hero for not just the gay community but for all of us who love baseball, all who have been lonely in our lives and sought connection to something larger than ourselves.
How to be gay on a men’s pro team? Today, that question ought not to be very different from being Black, or Jewish, or Hispanic … it all comes down to how we define manhood. In the end, isn’t the only real question, “Can you play?”
PIONEERS: Billy Bean was originally published in Our Game on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.