Billy Bean, an all-hustle outfielder for the Detroit Tigers, Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres who retired in 1999 because he thought baseball was not ready for an openly gay player, but who went on to become the first diversity chief for Major League Baseball, died on Tuesday. He was 60.
Major League Baseball said in a statement that the cause was acute myeloid leukemia. It did not say where he died.
Bean was only the second major league player to come out as gay. Glenn Burke, an outfielder for the Los Angeles Dodgers and Oakland Athletics, announced his sexual orientation after he retired in 1982, although, unlike with Bean, it had been of little mystery to Burke’s teammates and managers.
Bean broke new ground when he was named Major League Baseball’s first ambassador for inclusion in 2014. Since 2022, he had been the organization’s senior vice president of diversity, equity and inclusion.
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Among his duties, he worked with all 30 clubs educating players on inclusion and social justice initiatives, and spearheaded baseball’s Spirit Day, a social media-based anti-bullying campaign to support L.G.B.T.Q. youth.
“He made baseball a better institution,” the baseball commissioner, Rob Manfred, said in the statement, “both on and off the field, by the power of his example, his empathy, his communication skills, his deep relationships inside and outside our sport, and his commitment to doing the right thing.”
