Billy Bean has come full circle, throwing out the first pitch for the first Mets Pride Night on Saturday against his former San Diego team.
Bean came out as gay after he left the Padres in 1995. Now he is the MLB vice president for social responsibility and inclusion. In the past two years, he has talked to all 30 MLB ownership groups, various teams and players about struggling with his sexuality during his career and gay and lesbian inclusion in the workplace.
“The message is everyone is welcome that walks through the turnstiles to watch us play baseball,” Bean said. “The LGBT community is part of every community.”
Photo: AP
Mets general manager Sandy Alderson approached Bean after he heard him speak to GMs in 2014. Since then, the former outfielder, who had a six-year career with Detroit, the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Padres, has participated in spring training, spoken with players and thrown batting practice. He has helped former teammate and Mets coach Tommy Goodwin with the outfielders.
“[Alderson] wanted them to know about me,” said Bean, who grew up in Santa Ana, California. “My dad is a Marine Corps veteran, like Sandy. I grew up in a big family, very conservative. Lot of things that were explanations of why I chose to leave baseball as opposed to talk about what was going on with me.”
The Mets are among 10 teams hosting pride nights this season, and the first among the four New York men’s major pro sports to host the theme night. A portion of ticket sales will go to the LGBT Network, which promotes anti-bullying programs in the New York area.
Lou DePaoli, the Mets’ executive vice president and chief revenue officer, called New York a “diverse and inclusive city” and said: “We are particularly proud to welcome the LGBT community.”
Bean said one of the main parts of his job is to help younger players from all backgrounds and cultures understand workplace expectations.
“A lot of people forget our players are 19, 20, 21 years old,” he said. “They’re world-class baseball players, and they haven’t had time to learn all the ways of the world. We really prioritize messaging on life skills, domestic violence awareness and counseling about relationships. The inclusive conversation is a wonderful part of that comprehensive message.”
Bean said the comments in the clubhouse that “everybody’s been hearing for the past 500 years” would take time and education to reduce.
“It was acceptable to be disparaging. When guys are ragging other guys, they feminize them. The comments were sexist as much as they were homophobic,” he said.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier