Billy Bean, who came out as gay after he left the Padres in 1995, threw out the first pitch for the first Mets Pride Night on Saturday against his former San Diego team.

Bean, who is now Major League Baseball’s vice president for social responsibility and inclusion, says that the message “is everyone is welcome that walks through the turnstiles to watch us play baseball. The LGBT community is part of every community.”

The Mets are now among 10 teams that have hosted Pride Nights this season, and the first among the four New York men’s major pro sports to host the theme night. The league will donate a portion of ticket sales to the LGBT Network and its Safe Schools Initiative to stop bullying in Long Island and Queens.

In the past two years, Bean has talked to all 30 MLB ownership groups, various teams and players about struggling with his sexuality during his career and about gay and lesbian inclusion in the workplace, reports CBS.

Mets general manager Sandy Alderson wanted his players “to know about me,” said Bean. “My dad is a Marine Corps veteran, like Sandy. I grew up in a big family, very conservative. Lot of things that were explanations of why I chose to leave baseball as opposed to talk about what was going on with me.”

A lot of people forget our players are 19, 20, 21 years old,” he said. “They’re world class baseball players, and they haven’t had time to learn all the ways of the world. 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.”

Bean says the comments in the clubhouse that “everybody’s been hearing for the last 500 years” will take time and education to reduce. “It was acceptable to be disparaging. When guys are ragging other guys, they feminize them. The comments were sexist as much as they were homophobic.”

CBS adds:



Bean says he quit baseball without talking to one person about why. “I had never come out to my family, I was living a very secretive, dark life,” he said. “My partner died of HIV-related causes on the eve of what was my last season.” Brad Ausmus, the current Detroit Tigers manager, was Bean’s teammate and friend. He says Ausmus and his wife talk about how things “might have changed if I just would have told him. He would have said, `Don’t stop playing or just tell your parents or don’t tell your parents, just talk to us.’ “I didn’t realize there was a place for me in this world, and I didn’t even trust the people that loved me the most — my own family.” Alderson was part of the Oakland organization when Glenn Burke, the first MLB player to publicly acknowledge he was gay, played for the Dodgers (1976-78) and Athletics (1978-79). Burke left the majors after receiving little playing time with the A’s. He died at 42 of complications from AIDS in 1995.

Watch the crowd’s reaction to a pro-LGBT video message played during pride night: