Billy Bean remembers his own pain as a closeted ballplayer, and how it led to his early departure from the game he loved. Twenty years later, he’s back as Major League Baseball’s ambassador for inclusion.

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Twenty years after he left Major League Baseball and 14 years after coming out as gay, Billy Bean was recently back in a uniform, working out with the Mets in Port St. Lucie, Florida. Bean (not to be confused with Billy Beane of Moneyball fame), MLB’s newly installed “inclusion ambassador,” had been on a five-week spring training tour, meeting with team executives and players as part of his new mission: Change the culture of baseball. The day with the Mets showed the promise and the challenge of this new job. He showered and suited up in the Mets clubhouse, stretched and warmed up with the team, threw batting practice and played catch with the outfielders, and was able to talk to players about his own experience as a closeted gay man in professional sports. But following the visit, Mets second baseman Daniel Murphy told a reporter he “disagreed with the fact that Billy is a homosexual.” Murphy, who says he is a devout Christian, said that he did think he could accept an openly gay player on his team, however. “We love the people. We disagree with the lifestyle.” Media and fans were quick to criticize Murphy’s comments. In a post on MLB.com, Bean wrote he “appreciated that Daniel spoke his truth.” “He was brave to share his feelings, and it made me want to work harder and be a better example that someday might allow him to view things from my perspective, if only for just a moment,” Bean continued on his blog. “The silver lining in his comments are that he would be open to investing in a relationship with a teammate, even if he ‘disagrees’ with the lifestyle. It may not be perfect, but I do see him making an effort to reconcile his religious beliefs with his interpretation of the word lifestyle.” During a recent interview with BuzzFeed News, Bean said he “didn't want to appear soft," in his response to Murphy, but that his main intent is to “encourage Murphy to take a step closer to seeing life from my perspective, just as I'm trying to see life from his." As a former baseball player and an out gay man, Bean is part of two rarely overlapping communities. He said he absolutely has a “fire in his belly” for LGBT issues, but knows that if he is not patient, he will fail at his job. There will be more Daniel Murphy incidents to handle in his new role.

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In 2013, Billy Bean was living in Los Angeles and working in real estate when he received a call from Paul Mifsud, a labor relations attorney at MLB. Earlier that year, the New York attorney general’s office requested a meeting with all New York–based sports leagues to discuss their handling of LGBT inclusion. After that meeting, MLB decided it was time to make “meaningful steps” toward improving its inclusion of LGBT players and employees, and began reaching out to prominent members of the LGBT community. After reading Bean’s memoir, Going the Other Way, Mifsud decided he wanted to welcome Bean back into the baseball family. The two men had never spoken, and during the initial phone call, Mifsud told Bean he knew this phone call was “12 to 13 years late,” but hoped Bean might consider visiting MLB headquarters in New York to “give his opinions on some things.” By the end of the next week, Bean was standing in the commissioner’s office and recounting his personal journey as a closeted baseball player. A few days after he returned to Los Angeles, he received another call from Mifsud: “Would you consider working with us?” And without much of a plan or many details, he did. Bean recognizes the significance of his new role: “I was brought back to baseball for the same reason I left. Not a lot of people get that opportunity.” Bean played professional baseball from 1987 to 1995, all the while keeping a secret. A Southern California native, Bean was drafted by the Detroit Tigers in 1986, when he was 22. He played two seasons with the Tigers, another with the Dodgers, then finished his career with the Padres after a year playing in Japan. When he left the sport, he was grieving the loss of his partner to HIV-related illness and worried that he might receive a positive diagnosis as well. Bean didn’t have familial or social systems of support, and he certainly wasn’t going to come out to his teammates. For years, Bean had hoped that not acting on his desires would mean he was not gay. In 1989, Bean married his now ex-wife Gina, whom he still speaks of with love and affection. But three years later, Bean met Sam, who would later become his partner. Neither of the men were out to their families (which is why Bean does not want to use Sam’s last name), and Bean began to feel the pressure of balancing the man he was to baseball and to his family, and who he was to the man he loved. In an MLB Network documentary on Bean’s life in baseball, he reveals one of his biggest regrets as being the lengths he went to conceal his relationship with Sam. Out of fear that his team might begin to suspect he was gay, Bean did not invite Sam to watch his games. Bean realized the unfairness of his actions in 1993, when he hit his first career home run without Sam in the stands and later celebrated with his teammates instead. Later that season, Bean got Sam a seat in the family section — “if anyone asks, tell them you’re my buddy from out of town.” During that game, Bean blasted another home run, and when he rounded third, he looked up to find Sam in the family section. In 1995, Sam was diagnosed with HIV, but Bean’s test came back negative. A doctor, who Bean told BuzzFeed News did not have any expert understanding of HIV, told Bean he was likely to contract it as well. He was tested every other month, but his tests always came back negative. Two months after Sam’s diagnosis, Bean came home and found him unconscious on the floor. He took Sam to a hospital, where he later died of cardiac arrest. In his MLB Network special, Bean said the fear of being recognized at a hospital closer to his home led him to take Sam to a hospital a half hour from their home. Bean considers that decision to drive to a further hospital: “Could it have been different?”

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