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Billy Bean

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Not to be confused with Oakland Athletics baseball executive Billy Beane.
For other people named Billy Bean, see Billy Bean (disambiguation).

Billy Bean
Bean in 2016
Outfielder
Born: (1964-05-11)May 11, 1964
Santa Ana, California, U.S.
Died: August 6, 2024(2024-08-06) (aged 60)
New York City, U.S.
Batted: Left
Threw: Left
Professional debut
MLB: April 25, 1987, for the Detroit Tigers
NPB: 1992, for the Kintetsu Buffaloes
Last appearance
MLB: July 8, 1995, for the San Diego Padres
NPB: 1992, for the Kintetsu Buffaloes
MLB statistics
Batting average.226
Home runs5
Runs batted in53
Stats at Baseball Reference Edit this at Wikidata
Teams

William Daro Bean (May 11, 1964 – August 6, 2024) was an American professional baseball player. He played in Major League Baseball (MLB) as an outfielder for the Detroit Tigers (1987–1989), Los Angeles Dodgers (1989), and San Diego Padres (1993–1995), as well as the Kintetsu Buffaloes of Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) in 1992.[1] In July 2014, he was named MLB's first ambassador for inclusion, having publicly come out as gay in 1999.[2] In January 2016, he became MLB's vice president,[3] ambassador for inclusion and was senior vice president and special assistant to the commissioner.[4]

Early life

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Bean's father, Bill Bean, and mother, Linda Robertson, grew up on the same street and were classmates at Santa Ana High School in Santa Ana, California.[5] The couple married while Linda was pregnant, then separated when Billy was six months old. Linda married Ed Kovac, a police officer with three children. Linda initially worked as a uniformed officer, but because women could not be in the same police departments as their husbands, she quit her job upon remarriage.[5] Bean's extended Catholic step family grew to six children.[6][7][8] When he was a child, Bean's grandmother divorced his maternal grandfather, and he has three aunts on his mother's side of the family.[5]

Playing career

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Bean attended Santa Ana High School,[9] where he graduated as valedictorian,[10] played football under coach Tom Nice,[5] and won a state championship with the Santa Ana Saints baseball team.[11] He enrolled at Loyola Marymount University on an athletic scholarship to play college baseball for the Loyola Marymount Lions.[6][5]

Bean was a two-time All-American outfielder at LMU.[10] After his junior year, the New York Yankees selected Bean in the 24th round of the 1985 MLB Draft.[12] Though the Yankees offered Bean a $55,000 signing bonus, Bean was persuaded by his college coach, Dave Snow, to return for LMU for his senior year.[13][5]

During the summer of 1985, Bean played minor league baseball for the Fairbanks Goldpanners and was named Goldpanners' Player of The Year.[14][15]

During the 1986 college baseball season, Bean led the Lions to a midseason #1 national ranking and a berth to the 1986 College World Series,[10] the first (and as of 2024, only) time the school has made the College World Series.[16][17]

Bean graduated from LMU with a degree in Business Administration.[10]

The Detroit Tigers selected Bean in the fourth round of the 1986 MLB Draft.[16] He signed with the Tigers for $12,500. Bean made his major league debut for the Tigers on April 25, 1987, and tied the major league record of 4 hits in his debut game. He had a total of 6 bases with two doubles and won over the fans in Tiger Stadium who were chanting his name in the later inning at-bats. He spent most of the 1988 season in the minor leagues, where he led the Toledo Mud Hens in batting average; among his teammates in Toledo was the similarly named Billy Beane.[18][19] Bean played in 10 games for the Tigers after he was promoted back to the major leagues in August 1988. He played in nine games for the Tigers in the 1989 season.[13] On July 17, 1989, the Tigers traded Bean to the Los Angeles Dodgers for minor leaguers Steve Green and Domingo Michel.[20] He batted .197 for the Dodgers in 51 games, and was demoted to the minor leagues.[13]

Bean played in Minor League Baseball during the 1990 and 1991 seasons. He played for the Kintetsu Buffaloes of Nippon Professional Baseball in 1992,[13] batting .208 in seven games.[21] Bean signed a minor league contract with the San Diego Padres before the 1993 season. He was promoted back to the major leagues.[17] He batted .260 in 88 games for the Padres in 1993 and .215 in 84 games for the Padres in 1994. After playing for the Padres in 1995, Bean retired from baseball after the 1995 season.[13]

Television appearances

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Bean was a panelist on GSN's I've Got a Secret revival in 2006,[22][23] and was a board member of the Gay and Lesbian Athletics Foundation.[24] He appeared in a 2009 episode of Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List, showing Griffin several homes.[25]

In 2007, Bean was hired as a consultant by Scout Productions, the team of David Collins and Michael Williams, who produced Bravo's Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, for their next project with Showtime entitled The Beard. The project was to be a romantic comedy about a gay professional baseball player who enters into a relationship with a woman to survive in the sports world; Showtime did not go forward with the series.[26]

Bean starred in a MTV episode of Made, he was an actor in an episode of the sitcom Frasier,[27] and appeared as himself on the HBO series Arli$$ in the 2002 episode "Playing it Safe".[28]

Personal life

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Reflecting on his childhood, Bean remarked, "I've always been gay. I was gay since birth, and I just knew that there was something different about me but I couldn't quite put my finger on it until I think it was 13 years old."[5] He continued, "I always had a girlfriend from, like, the age of 14."[5]

In 1989, Bean married Anna Maria Amato, a student at the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandise in Los Angeles, whom Bean had been dating since 1985.[5][15] The Bean-Amato wedding was held on the Bluff at Loyola and attended by 300 guests, including 20 major league baseball players.[5]

Two years into his marriage, while playing for the Los Angeles Dodgers' AAA affiliate in Albuquerque, Bean met a man at a cowboy-themed gay bar.[29] In January 1993, while Bean and his wife were visiting her parents in the Washington, DC suburbs, Bean met his future partner Sam Madani, an Iranian immigrant, in the gym showers at a Maryland health club.[30] One week later, Amato and Bean separated and began divorce proceedings.[5][15]

Bean and his new partner Madani, who was raised in Austria and France, and spoke six languages, moved into a multi-level condo with ocean views in a Del Mar, California, gated community.[5]

Bean gave Madani a private tour of the Padres locker room at Jack Murphy Stadium, showing him the behind-the-scenes world of a MLB player.[30]

Bean and Madani kept their relationship and living arrangement secret from Bean's MLB teammates. When Bean's Padres teammates, Brad Ausmus and Trevor Hoffman, stopped by unannounced to Bean and Madani's condo, Madani had to hide in the car for approximately three hours for fear that they would be identified as a gay couple.[31][5][15] In 1994, Bean hosted a Super Bowl party for friends and family members and introduced Madani as "just a buddy".[5]

On April 23, 1995, Madani, who less than two months earlier had been diagnosed HIV-positive,[5] collapsed at their home. When Bean returned home after playing in an exhibition game against the Anaheim Angels, he discovered his partner unconscious. The MLB outfielder rushed Madani to the closest hospital, but changed course after recalling that he had recently appeared at the local hospital as a member of the Padres. Fearing that he would be outed, Bean drove an extra 30 minutes to a different hospital in a different direction.[31] The next morning, Madani died of a cardiac arrest from AIDS-related complications. Bean had a baseball game at one o'clock that afternoon.[5] Their homosexual relationship was guardedly private, and Bean did not attend Madani’s public funeral.[13][32]

Bean retired after the 1995 MLB season,[33] and gradually came out as gay to his parents and friends.[34] He came out publicly to Lydia Martin of the Miami Herald in 1999, becoming the second Major League Baseball player to publicly come out as gay;[5] Glenn Burke was the first to come out to his teammates and employers during his playing days but did not come out to the public at large until his career was over.[13] Following Burke's death in 1995, Bean became close with Burke's family.[35]

After leaving baseball, Bean moved to Miami Beach, Florida, for 15 years.[5] He was in a relationship with Efrain Veiga, the founder of Yuca, a local restaurant, for 13 years, breaking up in July 2008.[36][37]

In 2003, Bean released a memoir titled Going the Other Way: Lessons from a Life In and Out of Major League Baseball.[38][39]

Bean was appointed MLB's first "Ambassador for Inclusion" on July 15, 2014.[40] In this role, Bean counseled David Denson, who became the first minor league player signed to an MLB organization to come out as gay.[41] He later became the league's senior vice president for diversity, equity and inclusion.[35]

Bean was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia in 2023. He died at his home in New York City on August 6, 2024, at the age of 60.[42][43][44][45] At the time of his death, Bean was married to Greg Baker, a doctor, Manchester, New Hampshire native, and Boston Red Sox fan.[5][46]

References

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  1. ^ "Bill Bean Stats, Fantasy & News". Major League Baseball. Retrieved November 30, 2021.
  2. ^ "MLB names Bean its first Ambassador for Inclusion". Major League Baseball. July 15, 2014. Retrieved November 30, 2021.
  3. ^ Zeigler, Cyd (January 7, 2016). "MLB promotes Billy Bean to vice-president". Outsports. Retrieved May 5, 2023.
  4. ^ "MLB hires Pride as latest Ambassador for Inclusion". MLB.com. Retrieved August 30, 2024.
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Communications, NYU Web. "Episode 52: Billy Bean, VP of Social Responsibility and Inclusion and Special Assistant to the Commissioner, Major League Baseball". www.nyu.edu. Retrieved August 30, 2024.
  6. ^ a b Lipsyte, Robert (September 6, 1999). "BASEBALL; A Major League Player's Life Of Isolation and Secret Fear". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved August 30, 2024.
  7. ^ "Billy Bean On WFAN: Murphy's Comments 'A Reminder That We're Just Getting Started' - CBS New York". www.cbsnews.com. March 5, 2015. Retrieved August 30, 2024.
  8. ^ "Bean-Lovullo bond inspires as game's culture evolves". MLB.com. Retrieved August 30, 2024.
  9. ^ Coker, Matt (October 6, 2011). "Billy Bean, Pride of Santa Ana High and "Out" Major Leaguer, Rolls With Moneyball Billy Beane Confusion | OC Weekly". Archived from the original on July 14, 2014. Retrieved August 30, 2024.
  10. ^ a b c d "Major League Baseball mourns the passing of colleague Billy Bean". MLB.com. Retrieved August 30, 2024.
  11. ^ "Santa Ana HS CIF Champion Teams" (PDF). Santa Ana Unified School District. Retrieved August 31, 2024.
  12. ^ "1985 New York Yankees Picks in the MLB June Amateur Draft". Baseball-Reference.com. Retrieved August 30, 2024.
  13. ^ a b c d e f g Lipsyte, Robert (September 6, 1999). "BASEBALL; A Major League Player's Life Of Isolation and Secret Fear". The New York Times. Retrieved August 16, 2015.
  14. ^ BJOYAL@NEWSMINER.COM, Brad Joyal (June 22, 2018). "Former Goldpanner Billy Bean returns with Major League Baseball". Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. Retrieved August 30, 2024.
  15. ^ a b c d Rapp, Linda (2006). "Bean, Billy (b. 1964)" (PDF). glbtq.com.
  16. ^ a b "Billy Bean Means Business : Baseball Becomes a Job When Major League Is Within Reach". Los Angeles Times. July 14, 1986. Retrieved August 16, 2015.
  17. ^ a b "Former Loyola Marymount Outfielder Bean Is Getting a Chance With Padres". Los Angeles Times. June 27, 1993. Retrieved August 16, 2015.
  18. ^ "Mud Hens Yearly Leaders (1965–present)" (PDF). MiLB.com. Minor League Baseball. Retrieved September 21, 2016.
  19. ^ Archives, Outsports. "Brad Pitt does not play gay Billy Bean in "Moneyball," he plays straight Billy Beane". OutSports. Retrieved August 30, 2024.
  20. ^ "The Pittsburgh Press – Google News Archive Search". Retrieved August 16, 2015.
  21. ^ "1992 Osaka Kintetsu Buffaloes Statistics". Baseball-Reference.com. Retrieved August 30, 2024.
  22. ^ I've Got a Secret (TV Series 2006– ) – IMDb, retrieved July 5, 2023
  23. ^ I've Got a Secret, retrieved July 5, 2023
  24. ^ "Major League Baseball's Billy Bean Joins MMPW as National Spokesman". globalnewswire.com (Press release). March 10, 2015. Retrieved September 24, 2020.
  25. ^ "Meet Billy Bean, Major League Baseball's Gay Rights Ambassador". Details. Retrieved August 17, 2015.
  26. ^ "Showtime looking at The Beard". newnownext.com. July 31, 2007. Retrieved September 24, 2020.
  27. ^ "Billy Bean (I)". IMDb.
  28. ^ "HBO to rerun controversial Arli$$ episode featuring Billy Bean (6096)". advocate.com.
  29. ^ Williams, Alex. Billy Bean Dies at 60; Led Baseball on Diversity After Coming Out as Gay. The New York Times. August 9, 2024. Print edition.
  30. ^ a b "Hitting a Home Run for My Lover". Outsports. May 27, 2013.
  31. ^ a b Pinak, Patrick (June 1, 2022). "Billy Bean Tragically Lost His Partner to AIDS Before Becoming a Gay MLB Pioneer". FanBuzz. Major League Baseball.
  32. ^ Martin, Lydia (August 5, 1999). "A Fresh Start: Once A Closeted Major League Outfielder, Billy Bean Is Now Finding His Own Voice". Chicago Tribune. Knight Ridder. Retrieved August 17, 2015.
  33. ^ Victoria Edel (August 6, 2024). "Billy Bean, Second Major League Baseball Player to Come Out as Gay, Dies at 60". Yahoo Sports.
  34. ^ "19 Male Baseball Heroes Who Came Out as Gay or Bisexual". advocate.com. Retrieved July 5, 2023.
  35. ^ a b Miller, Scott (June 2, 2022). "The Dodgers Embrace the Family of a Player They Once Shunned". The New York Times. Retrieved July 7, 2024.
  36. ^ Buzinski, Jim (June 29, 2008). "Billy Bean, partner split". OutSports. Retrieved August 21, 2009.
  37. ^ "Bean-Viega Split Accompanied by Tragedy". The Advocate. July 11, 2008. Retrieved August 21, 2009.
  38. ^ Bugg, Sean (May 15, 2003). "Out of the Park: Former pro-baseball player Billy Bean pursues a new field of dreams". Metro Weekly. Retrieved June 11, 2014.. Written by Billy Bean with Chris Bull; published New York: Marlowe & Company, 2003.
  39. ^ "Going the Other Way: Lessons from a Life in and Out of Major-League Baseball by Billy Bean". Publishers Weekly. Retrieved July 5, 2023.
  40. ^ Maury Brown. "MLB Names Former Major League Outfielder Billy Bean As First". Forbes. Retrieved August 16, 2015.
  41. ^ Tom Haudricourt. "Brewers minor-leaguer makes baseball history by coming out publicly as gay". jsonline.com. Retrieved August 16, 2015.
  42. ^ Feinsand, Mark (August 6, 2024). "Baseball trailblazer Billy Bean, who dedicated life to inclusion, dies at 60". Major League Baseball. Retrieved August 6, 2024.
  43. ^ "Bean, openly gay ex-player who worked for MLB, dies at 60". ESPN. August 6, 2024. Retrieved August 7, 2024.
  44. ^ "Billy Bean". Baseball Almanac. August 7, 2024. Retrieved August 7, 2024.
  45. ^ Guzman, Ed. "MSN". MSN. Retrieved August 8, 2024.
  46. ^ "Major League Baseball mourns the passing of colleague Billy Bean: MLB's Sr. VP and Former Major League Outfielder Was 60" (Press release). Major League Baseball. August 6, 2024.
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