IMG_20150303_100806011.jpg

Billy Bean, right, joined the Mets in camp today as an inclusion ambassador.

(Mike Vorkunov/NJ Advance Media)

PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. — Sandy Alderson sat in the Mets dugout at Tradition Field, his voice underlined by a mix of anger and regret. He is usually even-keeled — at times stoic — in his public message.

But this memory gave him fire. He remembered Glenn Burke, the first major league baseball to disclose that he was gay. He bemoaned how his life ended.

Burke had lived on the streets of San Francisco while Alderson ran the Oakland A's. The organization tried to offer him help, at the urging of a co-worker, but it was not enough. He died, according to media reports, of AIDS the next year.

"That can't happen," Alderson said. "Never should have happened. It can't happen again."

The dissatisfaction lingers as Alderson tries to prevent the scenario from playing out again. He offered it on the day the Mets welcomed Billy Bean, Major League Baseball's inclusion ambassador and the second major league player to announce he was gay after the end of a six-year career, into their spring training camp.

Instead, Bean spent a day with the Mets in uniform and dressed in the clubhouse. He had already visited the Tigers and willing to go to the camps of teams that requested his appearance — although not every team has.

"We're trying to reach out to people and we are there if they reach back," Bean said, explaining his intent.

Bean's appearance was welcomed by Mets players. He had left the sport after feeling the burden of his secret, unable to divulge it until his career was over.

His goal, he said, was to help others and to raise awareness of what he had endured.

Twenty years after Bean left the sport, there is a belief that baseball could and is in a place to accept a gay player.

"In my opinion nobody should be run out of a game or doing something that they're good at based on something that doesn't matter out on the field," Michael Cuddyer said. "In that respect, I think baseball has a whole would be willing to accept that."

Cuddyer says he has never had a gay teammate that he has known of. Daniel Murphy says he has not either.

He too is ready for a gay teammate, he says. The Mets consulted players this winter before bringing Bean in and Murphy called the idea "forward thinking." More than just listening to a seminor or speech, it was an opportunity to get to known an individual. He regretted that he had not had the chance to meet Bean yet.

Murphy, a devout Christian, said he would embrace Bean despite a divergence in their beliefs.

"I disagree with his lifestyle," Murphy said. "I do disagree with the fact that Billy is a homosexual. That doesn't mean I can't still invest in him and get to know him. I don't think the fact that someone is a homosexual should completely shut the door on investing in them in a relational aspect. Getting to know him. That, I would say, you can still accept them but I do disagree with the lifestyle, 100 percent."

But Murphy also saw the moment as an opening for a conversation and an avenue to get past stereotypes. The issue, he says, was "uncharted territory."

While there may be a perception that Christian athletes may not be accepting of gay players, Murphy says that it is not the case.

"Maybe, as a Christian, that we haven't been as articulate enough in describing what our actual stance is on homosexuality," he said. "We love the people. We disagree the lifestyle. That's the way I would describe it for me. It's the same way that there are aspects of my life that I'm trying to surrender to Christ in my own life. There's a great deal of many things, like my pride. I just think that as a believer trying to articulate it in a way that says just because I disagree with the lifestyle doesn't mean I'm just never going to speak to Billy Bean every time he walks through the door. That's not love. That's not love at all."

Alderson hoped that by bringing Bean into the clubhouse it would do more than "just check off a box." He hoped for more than just a passing moment.

Bean, dressed in a Mets cap, a team windbreaker and a glove with his name stitched in, spent the day on the complex's backfields as the Mets played an intrasquad game.

If he had been able to hear this message when he was still in the game, he believed it would have been "life-changing."

"It's a shame that he couldn't survive in the game longer given what he was feeling," Alderson said. "That's not right. That's not fair and that's not something that in this day and age a player should have to face. And it's not just about being gay, it's about having any kind of personal issue that makes it difficult to go out and perform and enjoy the game."

Spring Training 2015:

As Defensive Shifts Become Divisive, One Prominent Mets Pitcher Protests Too

Mike Vorkunov may be reached at mvorkunov@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @Mike_Vorkunov. Find NJ.com Mets on Facebook.