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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (July 4, 2003)
1 And, you're out! From high-five lo down and out Major league baseball’s Billy Bean tells all The real first openly gay mstfor league baseball player by F loyd S klaver ou think you’ve had a had day? C om pare your worst to major league base ball player Billy Bean’s. Still closeted in 1995, he watched hts first lover, Sam, die o f A ID S complications and then went to the ballpark that afternoon to learn he had been sent down to the minors. Less than a year later, the boyishly hand some Bean quit baseball altogether, came out to his friends and family and settled down with a new partner in Miami. Going the O ther W ay: Lessens from a Life In and O ut o f Major-League Baseball is a compelling first- person account of trying to fit jn to the homophobic world of professional sports. Bean was horn in California’s conserva- • tive Orange County. His father married his 18-year-old mother after she became preg nant, then left when Bean was 6 months old. Despite being small and slight, he per sisted to become a star athlete— high schcxil fixitball quarterback, full athletic scholarship to college and then drafted by the New York Yankees during his junior year. But Bean was not considered fast or strong enough to he a starting player, and the next 10 years saw him bouncing between major, minor and winter leagues. During this time he “earned a reputation as one of the biggest lover boys’’ and married his college sweetheart. But he also began having sexual feelings toward men. He finally began acting on those feelings at the age of 28, escaping from the other baseball players to find out-of-the way bars while the team was on the road. “This was clearly no phase,” he realized after finding yet another man attractive. He met Sam in the shower of a health club where, ironically, his wife was waiting in the lobby; they divorced s<x>n after. Frightened of being ostracized and rejected, he kept his new relationship secret, even hiding Sam away in the garage when teammates dropped by. Bean left baseball but still didn’t come out. Living in Miami with his second partner, he broke all contact and ties with his former life. W hen he missed the funeral o f his closest friend because no one could reach him to break the news, he finally decided to come out. ['Hir ing an interview with a local reporter he was asked whether he could he identified as part of a gay couple. “Why not?" Bean replied. “It’s time to grow up." Brutally honest, G oing the O ther W ay discuss 1 was gay and were wor omg the O ther Way ried aHxjt how the aver promotes Billy Bean age father would feel as “the only openly aHxit taking his son to a gay former major baseball game to see some league baseball player.” fag shagging fly balls in That campaign is mislead center field." The Dixlgers ing. The real first openly offered him a Hxieymoon gay former major league bonus if he’d find a baseball player died in 1995. In 1972 G lenn Burke, woman to marry, but he refused. At the end of his then 20, was recruited by second season he was the Los Angeles Dixlgers traded to the Oakland As. and sent to play in the But Oakland was no minor leagues before being called on for “the show.” more welcoming, despite Weighing 220 pounds with being directly across the 17-inch biceps and “built bay from San Francisco, where Burke was a fixture like a fucking tank," his in the Castro bars. Other teammates nicknamed him King Kong. players began wearing towels in the locker nx»m Burke’s four years in the majors were mediocre. He G lenn Burke was finally drummed out of and making predictable jokes about not bending had a .237 hatting average the majors in 1 9 8 2 because he was gay over in the shower. with 35 stolen bases, Hit he In 1980 the A s hired macho Billy Martin as made a lasting mark on the game by inventing manager, who proceeded to make Burke’s life the high-five. In 1977 the Dodgers were playing miserable by announcing during spring training the Hixiston Astros, and teammate Dusty Baker that “no faggot was going to play on my ball sent his 30th home run of the year over the right club.” W hen Burke hurt his knee, the As sent field wall. T he enthusiastic Burke raced out to him down to the minors. meet him at home plate. He raised his hands and A t 28, with no other team willing to sign Hiker matched him— allegedly the first high-five in history. him, Burke was essentially blacklisted for being gay, and his career was over. He became a Although Burke didn’t come out publicly heavy cocaine user and spent 17 months in San until after he left the majors in 1982, he didn’t Quentin on several charges. He died o f A ID S keep his sexuality secret from his teammates, complications in 1995 at the home o f his sister. even going so far as to befriend the effeminate gay son o f Dixlgers manager Tommy LaSorda “They can’t ever say now that a gay man can’t (a notorious bigot). play in the majors," Burke said in a 1993 inter view, “Hcause I’m a gay man, and 1 made it.” Burke put it bluntly in his 1995 autobiography, Out at H om e: The Glenn Burke Story: “They knew — f s jn G It * 3 J / es Billy’s hopes and dreams and how the bur geoning awareness of his sexuality threatened to crush his aspirations. “T he reflexive connection between homophobia and athletics had been hardwired into me since I stepped onto the fix>t- hall field at the age of 8," he writes. Filled with insider information about the big leagues, this is the tale of a man who went to extraordinary lengths to hide and now is on a mission to nudge baseball toward equality for everybtxly. J H • -------- — 1 AS n Come out, come out, wherever you are I espite the recent high-profile coming-outs of ex-baseball player Billy Bean and ex football player Esera Tuaolo, professional sports remain extremely homophobic. In a 1993 interview, Glenn Burke, the first openly gay professional baseball player, claimed he knew “at least 10 active or recently retired major league players who arc gay or bisexual.” He alleged that of the four major team sports— base ball, basketball, football and hockey— the Nation al Football League had the most gay players. • D Just last year, New York Mecs catcher Mike Piazza denied rumors that he was gay after man ager Bobby Valentine set off a media frenzy by saying that players can accept an openly gay teammate. And in May 2001, Out magazine publisher Brendan Lemon urged a closeted pro baseball player (“N ot his team’s biggest star but a very recognizable media figure all the same”) with whom he was having an affair to come out. Athletes in solo sports seem to have an eas ier time being open about their sexuality. Gay 1 - w HAD _ 1 house • More lhan a coffee house, an oasis of experience gifts • live music • organic coffee The Pink Place 76 lb m * NETihuiti IV 5 0 3 - 2 M - 7 6 I3 www touchstonecoffeehouse com 1 . c* k B eautiful P atio D i ni ng B ento S peci a l i s t s À 4 5 3 7 NE FRKMOMT 5 0 3 - 3 3 5 - 7 0 6 8 Specialties THE r u R n P r L L E c r n n PU TTT 730a-230p Tvie-Fn, 8a-.Ip Sat-Sun caf» 503-281-3560 wwwpurpleparlotcom ! Bring in this ad for $2 off any pizza! ta p « ** t WWW.RKOriO.COM reative afe All vegetarian. 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