MLB names Billy Bean as Ambassador to LGBT inclusion

[PseudoSABR]

Major League Baseball* announced, using the All-star stage (or shade?), that they have designated Billy Bean to prepare the sport for LGBT athletes and employees.

Bean, who played in the Major Leagues for parts of six seasons from 1987-89 and 1993-95, wrote a book titled "Going the Other Way: Lessons from a Life In and Out of Major League Baseball." He works actively to dispel the myth and stereotypes that follow people of diversity.

Bean sounds like a class act.

 

*Unlike the NFL (here's some further discussion).

Edited July 16, 2014 by PseudoSABR

[Seth Stohs]

I'm not sure if you're serious, but just in case...

 

Moneyball = Billy Beane... this is Billy Bean.

 

This is a nice step by MLB, in my opinion. The NBA and now NFL have active players who have come out. MLB hasn't to this point. Billy Bean came out after his career concluded. Burke was known to be gay by his teammates and those around his team, but it was a tough situation for him back then.

[Bark's Lounge]

I remember hearing when Bean first announced he was same sex oriented. It was 1999 or 2000 or somewhere in that time frame. For a few years, I thought it was Billy Beane. I did not dig into it at all, but I felt pretty good that nobody was giving the Oakland General Manager Billy Beane any grief or harassing him and I was pleasantly surprised and thought progress was being made.

 

It then dawned on me in 2001 or 2002, after looking through some old baseball cards I had stored at my grandparents house, that I might have mixed up Beane for Bean. After a small amount of research, I discovered the error in my ways.

 

Anyways, progress is definitely being made, and I am glad to see Billy Bean given this hopefully important position.

 

2014 is definitely better than the early 2000's and light years away from the late eighties/early nineties.

 

Good Luck my friend - you have my support!

Edited July 16, 2014 by Bark's Lounge

[PseudoSABR]

I'm not sure if you're serious, but just in case...

 

Moneyball = Billy Beane... this is Billy Bean.

Thanks for the correction and the story. I kept thinking that I've always gotten the spelling of the A's GM's name wrong. Mea Culpa/My Bad (It's a good story, and I was too excited to post it). In Bean's press address*, it's hard not to see his sense of gratefulness at such an opportunity.

 

*His words appear in the video at the top of this article.

Edited July 16, 2014 by PseudoSABR

[ashbury]

"Going the Other Way: Lessons from a Life In and Out of Major League Baseball"

 

Awesome book title, containing two double-entendres (unless I am not hip enough to notice there are others).