Billy Bean, Second Major League Baseball Player to Come Out as Gay, Dies at 60 [View all]
Billy Bean has died at the age of 60. In 1999, the former baseball player — whose teams included the Detroit Tigers, the Los Angeles Dodgers and the San Diego Padres — was the second former Major League Baseball player to come out as gay. Bean became the league’s senior vice president for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.
Bean's death was confirmed by the Major League Baseball, which posted on X (formerly known as Twitter) that the former player "fought a heroic year-long battle with Acute Myeloid Leukemia."
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Bean came out to his family that November. He came out publically in 1999, first in an article in the Miami Herald and then in The New York Times. At the time, he was in a relationship with Efrain Veiga; they split in 2008.
He was the second former player to come out after Glenn Burke, who had been out to teammates but came out publicly in 1982. Burke died in 1995. Bean developed a relationship with Burke’s family and advocated for MLB and the Dodgers (Burke's former team) to embrace him in a larger way, per The New York Times.
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