Billy Bean
Professional
Baseball
Played for the Tigers, Dodgers and Padres. He came out publicly in 1999, most
notably in a September front page article in the New York Times. Bean and his partner run a Miami
restaurant and he has become a high-profile spokesman for gay rights.
From Lydia Martin of the Miami Herald - July/October 1999:
Billy Bean was a closeted outfielder in the macho world of big-league baseball who gave it all up for love. He has spent six seasons with the Detroit Tigers, Los Angeles Dodgers and the San Diego Padres. Billy's decision to leave the Padres and move to Miami was painful for him - he was still waiting to make a real mark. His career big-league batting average was .226 in 272 games. At the end, he was floundering, on the verge of being busted down to the minors again.
But that's not why he walked out. He walked out because he had made a promise to himself to leave the game if he ever found somebody who mattered enough. There had been somebody else, when Billy was still playing ball. He got married at 24 and divorced at 27 realizing that he was gay. Not long after, he met his first gay partner. A couple years later, the man he'll identify only as Sam, a handsome Iranian who knew nothing of baseball but knew everything about life, died suddenly of a ruptured pancreas. Billy rushed him to the hospital one night. Sam died in front of him at 7 the next morning. By 1 that afternoon, Billy was suited up and playing ball. He didn't even attend his former partner's funeral. Billy was deep in the closet, and without revealing the truth about his life, he had no excuse to get out of traveling with the Padres to the next game. That's when Billy vowed not to let baseball get in the way of his life again...
"I told myself that if it ever came around again that I found somebody, I would sacrifice everything for that relationship. And ultimately, that's what I did. The death of my friend made me cynical about baseball. That day when I played that game, everybody was joking around about his girl and that babe. And I thought 'I'm fighting to stay in this environment. Why? Is it all about money? Is it all about fame? Do I have such a lack of self-esteem that I can't be myself in the real world?'"
There's one thing Billy realized - he couldn't tell the world he was gay and continue to play ball. Billy wasn't out of the closet. Being a major-league ball player meant he couldn't be gay. Nobody knew about him, and if there were other gay ball players in the majors, they kept it secret too...
"I had gone through a seriously difficult time. I was tired of holding my breath eight hours a day when I walked into the locker room and heard the guys saying 'Lets go kick some gay guys' asses.' Or when I went to Hooters or to strip bars just to be one of the guys. I was selling myself out. If it had been known I was gay, I would have been ostracized. I would have wound up on Oprah. Overnight, they would have found some way to kick me out. Because some dad doesn't want his little kid watching some gay baseball player and saying, 'I want to grow up to be just like him.'"
Six month later, Billy met Efrain Veiga, a famous name in South Beach cuisine who founded Yuca, a popular Miami restaurant, and also helped establish the Nuevo Latino movement. Their meeting was storybook...Billy was in Miami with the San Diego Padres to play against the Florida Marlins. After the game, the ball player was invited to Yuca for dinner by a group of friends. Efrain was there that night and introduced to Billy...
"He sat down and had dinner with us. Then he said goodbye
and that was that. I didn't know anything about him except that he owned the
restaurant. He had no idea who I was. I left town again, no big deal. But four
months later when we came back to play, I wanted to see him again", says
Billy, who couldn't get the dapper, soft-spoken Efrain out of his mind. "He
didn't care what I did for a career. He had never been to a baseball game in his
life. Anybody who has ever met him can understand why I felt so comfortable with
him. I like being around people who make me appreciate life and who are in touch
with the things that really matter. And that's Efrain."
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This page was last updated on 11 June 2005