Honored by ESPN, Billy Bean's Husband Has Message For MLB
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As MLB's first Senior Vice President of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, the late Billy Bean carved out a unique legacy.
An outfielder and first baseman for the Detroit Tigers, Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres (1987-95), Bean made history by coming out as gay after he retired as a player.
More news: Former American League All-Star Pitcher Passes Away
Bean, who died last year at age 60, was named MLB's first-ever Ambassador for Inclusion by former Commissioner Bud Selig in July 2014. Greg Baker saw first-hand how seriously his husband committed himself to the work of making professional baseball a more inclusive place for those in the LGBTQ+ community.
"He was always there to work things out with other people, to be a coach, encourage all sorts of people who met along the way," Baker told Newsweek Sports. "But I would see him come home at the end of the day at 6 p.m. and sit right there on the counter in the kitchen and get the laptop out and start just tidying things up — making sure he was dotting his I's and crossing his T's."
Players pause for a moment of silence in memory of Billy Bean before the game between the Oakland Athletics and the Chicago White Sox at Oakland Coliseum on Aug. 6, 2024 in Oakland.
Players pause for a moment of silence in memory of Billy Bean before the game between the Oakland Athletics and the Chicago White Sox at Oakland Coliseum on Aug. 6, 2024 in Oakland.Baker was presented the Stuart Scott ENSPIRE Award Tuesday on Bean's behalf at the 11th annual Sports Humanitarian Awards. The awards will be featured in ESPN studio programming and during the 2025 ESPYs, airing live on Wednesday at 8 p.m. ET.
Broader efforts to promote diversity, equity and inclusion — the very values that Bean championed — have recently come under attack in ways that intersect directly with baseball.
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In March, the Department of Defense briefly removed, then restored, a web page recognizing trailblazing Dodgers star Jackie Robinson's service in the U.S. Army in World War II. The page honoring Robinson, who became the first Black player in modern American or National League history in 1947, reappeared following intense media backlash without the letters "DEI" in its URL.
No active major league players have come out publicly since Bean played his final game in 1995. The question of whether a modern clubhouse would welcome such a player might have been answered last August, when a television microphone for the Boston Red Sox's regional sports network picked up outfielder Jarren Duran using a homophobic slur.
NESN mics picked up Red Sox outfielder Jarren Duran calling a heckling fan a "f*cking f*****" during Sunday's game
(Warning, slur included in clip below) pic.twitter.com/R6UYjJqnCJ — Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) August 12, 2024
By the time Duran met with reporters after the game, he was apologetic. The Red Sox echoed the apology in a written statement after the game and suspended Duran for two games.
"Maybe it's gonna take a little longer than we think, you know?" Baker said Tuesday.
More news: Former Cubs, Phillies Manager Passes Away
MLB elevated April Brown from its Senior Vice President, Social Responsibility and Community Affairs to Senior Vice President, Social Responsibility and Diversity after Bean's death.
The league still lists "inclusiveness" among the values on its careers page, after it removed references to "diversity" in March following an executive order by President Donald Trump.
More news: Tigers All-Star, First Draft Pick to Appear in an MLB Game, Passes Away
Baker said that Bean lived with his acute myeloid leukemia diagnosis for about a year. During that time, Baker said Bean "couldn't do the amount of work that he wanted to be able to do" and, as a result, "he felt that things were suffering."
"I know that Billy certainly had a lot more work that he wanted to do, and that I know that there's a lot of work that still needs to be done," Baker said. "I just hope that they [Major League Baseball] find a way to continue the mission that he started and he did so well."
For more MLB news, visit Newsweek Sports.
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Nick Kurtz's historic 4-HR barrage is latest proof that he's slugging his way into AL Rookie of the Year race
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