Billy Bean

Not to be confused with another former Major League Baseball player and current general manager of the Oakland Athletics[1] Billy Beane.
For other people named Billy Bean, see Billy Bean (disambiguation).
Billy Bean
Outfielder
Born: May 11, 1964
Santa Ana, California
Batted: Left Threw: Left
MLB debut
April 25, 1987 for the Detroit Tigers
Last MLB appearance
July 8, 1995 for the San Diego Padres
Career statistics
Batting average .226
Home runs 5
Runs batted in 53
Teams

William Daro "Billy" Bean (born May 11, 1964) is an American former professional baseball player. He played in Major League Baseball 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 in 1992. He publicly came out as gay in 1999.

Career

Bean was an outfielder, and left-handed hitter, with 487 at bats with a .226 batting average in a career that lasted from 1987 through 1995: Detroit Tigers 1987-1989, Los Angeles Dodgers 1989, San Diego Padres 1993–1995. He played for the Kintetsu Buffaloes in Japan in 1992. While with the Tigers' AAA-affiliate in Toledo, he played in the same outfield as future Oakland Athletics General Manager Billy Beane and a teammate named Rice.[2]

After acknowledging that he is gay, Bean went on to write a book, Going the Other Way: Lessons from a Life in and out of Major League Baseball.[3]

Bean is the second Major League Baseball player who has ever revealed his homosexuality. Billy Bean came out after his retirement. Glenn Burke was the first to come out to his teammates and employers during his playing days, though Burke didn't come out to the public at large until his career was over.

Appearances

He was a panelist on GSN's I've Got A Secret revival in 2006, and is a board member of the Gay and Lesbian Athletics Foundation.

In the summer of 2007, it was announced that he had been 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 is a romantic comedy about a gay professional baseball player who enters into a relationship with a woman in order to survive in the sports world.

Bean starred in a MTV episode of Made, he was an actor in an episode of the sitcom Frasier[4] and appeared as himself on the HBO series Arli$$ in the 2002 episode "Playing it Safe".

Personal life

He attended Santa Ana High School.[5] For 13 years, Bean was the partner of Efrain Veiga, the founder of Yuca restaurant in Miami. They broke up in July 2008.[6][7]

Bean lives in Miami, Florida and sells real estate. He appeared in a 2009 episode of Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List, showing Griffin several homes.

Bean was appointed MLB's first "Ambassador for Inclusion" on July 15, 2014.[8]

References

  1. ↑ Jaffe, Jay. "Winter Report Card: Oakland Athletics". SI.com. Sports Illustrated. Retrieved 6 February 2015.
  2. ↑ https://twitter.com/JaneMLB/status/581222391679840256
  3. ↑ 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.
  4. ↑ "Billy Bean (I)".
  5. ↑ Coker, Matt (October 6, 2011). "Billy Bean, Pride of Santa Ana High and "Out" Major Leaguer, Rolls With Moneyball Billy Beane Confusion". Blogs.ocweekly.com. Retrieved December 4, 2013.
  6. ↑ Buzinski, Jim (June 29, 2008). "Billy Bean, partner split". OutSports. Retrieved August 21, 2009.
  7. ↑ "Bean-Viega Split Accompanied by Tragedy". The Advocate. July 11, 2008. Retrieved August 21, 2009.
  8. ↑ MLB Names Former Major League Outfielder Billy Bean As First "Ambassador for Inclusion"

External links