Major League Baseball has appointed former player Billy Bean, who came out as gay after he retired, to serve as a Ambassador for Inclusion. The league said he will will help “provide guidance on supporting LGBT community within MLB.”
“It’s ironic that I am returning to baseball to help erase the same reason I left,” Bean told Outsports. “Moving forward, I will make it my mission that no other athlete ever has to make that same mistake I made in silence again.”
Bean’s appointment comes ahead of the league’s annual All-Star Game in Minneapolis tonight, where former player Glenn Burke will also be recognized. The former Oakland A and Los Angeles Dodger came out to his teammates during his playing days in the 1970s, and left baseball at the age of 27, citing that “prejudice drove” him to leave “sooner than I should have.”