Billy Bean passes away at age 60

Main League Baseball is mourning the lack of one among its personal.

Billy Bean, the league’s Senior Vice President of Variety, Fairness and Inclusion, handed away at his house on Tuesday after an 11-month battle with acute myeloid leukemia. Bean, who was recognized final September, was 60 years previous.

“Our hearts are damaged at the moment as we mourn our pricey buddy and colleague, Billy Bean, one of many kindest and most revered people I’ve ever recognized,” Commissioner Rob Manfred mentioned. “Billy was a buddy to numerous folks throughout our recreation, and he made a distinction by his fixed dedication to others. He made Baseball a greater establishment, each on and off the sphere, by the facility of his instance, his empathy, his communication expertise, his deep relationships inside and out of doors our sport, and his dedication to doing the proper factor. We’re perpetually grateful for the enduring influence that Billy made on the sport he beloved, and we are going to always remember him. On behalf of Main League Baseball, I prolong my deepest condolences to Billy’s husband, Greg Baker, and their total household.”

A local of Santa Ana, Calif., Bean was the one residing brazenly homosexual Main League participant (present or former), having come out in 1999. Detroit’s fourth-round Draft decide in 1986, Bean performed for the Tigers, Dodgers and Padres from 1987-1995, logging a complete of 519 plate appearances in 272 profession video games.

His resolution to retire on the age of 31 wasn’t simple, however he determined that residing as a closeted baseball participant was untenable, and he believed that neither he nor the sport was prepared for an brazenly homosexual participant. It wasn’t till 1999, greater than three years after his closing recreation, that Bean got here out, turning into solely the second participant ever to take action. (Glenn Burke, who retired in 1979 and got here out in 1982, died in 1995.)

Bean grew to become a nationwide story, with media shops together with the New York Instances, CNN and ABC protecting his story. In 2003, Bean printed his memoir, “Going the Different Method,” which grew to become a nationwide bestseller.

“These days, there’s a lot extra info,” Bean mentioned in 2018. “Self-identification occurs so much earlier, and open-hearted households and oldsters train their kids about all the things on this planet. It permits for an earlier evolution. I used to be residing in a really stone-age area.”

Bean joined the Workplace of the Commissioner in July 2014, employed by then-Commissioner Bud Selig as MLB’s first-ever Ambassador for Inclusion. As a senior advisor to Manfred, Bean’s function centered on participant schooling, LGBTQ inclusion, and social justice initiatives.

“As society progressed, Billy introduced that as a figurehead to Main League Baseball and establishments that by no means had a place like that, or a task like that, and even acknowledged it,” mentioned Yankees bench coach Brad Ausmus, who performed 18 years within the huge leagues and has been a detailed buddy to Bean, courting again to their time as Padres teammates within the Nineteen Nineties.

“It’s a tragic day, positively, for what he’s carried out within the recreation,” A’s supervisor Mark Kotsay mentioned. “His management goes to be missed within the function. Brad Ausmus is an efficient buddy of mine, and I do know Brad despatched him a be aware at the moment. … For baseball, we misplaced an envoy and a extremely, actually nice man.”

MLB promoted Bean to Vice President and Particular Assistant to the Commissioner in March 2017, including anti-bullying efforts to his plate. 5 years later, Bean was promoted to Senior Vice President of Variety, Fairness and Inclusion.

Bean served as a member of the MLB Homeowners’ DE&I Committee, instrumental within the growth of MLB’s bullying prevention schooling programming and the sport’s assist of Spirit Day, MLB’s “Forward within the Rely” schooling program, and in elevating the visibility of MLB’s psychological wellness assets. Bean additionally served as a keynote speaker in settings inside and out of doors {of professional} sports activities.

“Billy would say that baseball did much more for him than he ever did for baseball,” Ausmus mentioned. “I actually consider in speaking to him, that the most effective factor that is ever occurred to him in his life is that he was in a position to get again into baseball after having to depart baseball.”

Ausmus and Corridor of Fame nearer Trevor Hoffman had been among the many first of Bean’s former teammates to achieve out to Bean after he got here out in 1999.

On Tuesday, Hoffman described Bean as a “type soul, a considerate teammate.”

“He revered the sport, performed it laborious,” Hoffman mentioned. “After which was actually the primary inclusion ambassador in baseball — and I believed he had a singular perspective, simply having lived in that enviornment along with his private hurdles that he needed to deal with as a participant.

“After which as any person that actually navigated the subsequent period of gamers and group into the long run and forward-thinking. So, actually, he was in the proper place on the proper time. He’s going to be an enormous loss for all of baseball and society. He’s going to be sorely missed.”

After receiving his prognosis final September, Bean made it public in December. MLB’s annual Winter Conferences Charity Public sale supported Stand As much as Most cancers, which was chosen after Bean and Catalina Villegas, MLB’s Director of Variety, Fairness and Inclusion, had been each recognized with most cancers in 2023.

“You simply by no means know the chance that baseball supplies,” Bean mentioned upon the launch of the public sale. “Somebody’s going to concentrate that possibly wouldn’t have in any other case. Hopefully what we’re doing saved a life at the moment.”