Safe at home.

After years in the closet as a professional baseball player, Billy Bean finds happiness as an openly gay man

When Billy Bean retired from professional baseball in 1995 after a nine-year career, he figured he had signed his last autograph. But during a September trip to New York City after he became only the second ex-major leaguer to come out publicly as gay, Bean was stopped on the street by a young man who asked him to sign a newspaper photograph of himself.

"I couldn't believe says Bean, smiling at the memory. "I never could have imagined while I was playing that someday someone would want my autograph because I came out. I've seen famous players ride off into the sunset and not make much of an impact. I've seen not-so-famous players make a big impact off the field. Now I feel like I might be able to do some good with my life."

Indeed, Bean's disclosure in The Miami Herald prompted an overwhelming response. Reporters flocked to get an extraordinarily rare peek into the homophobic world of pro team sports and the baseball closet. In September The New York Times ran a front-page stow. Diane Sawyer filmed a segment about Bean and his partner of four years, Efrain Veiga, for ABC-TV's news-magazine 20/20.

Though he never achieved star status, often bouncing back and forth between the minor and major leagues, Bean earned a reputation as a fundamentally sound performer who would play his heart out for the team. In his six seasons in the majors, Bean had stints with the Los Angeles Dodgers, Detroit Tigers, and San Diego Padres. One of his proudest achievements is getting five consecutive pinch hits--one of the most difficult feats in baseball--when he played for the Padres in 1994.

In an exclusive interview with The Advocate, his first ever with the gay press, Bean said the personal response to his stow has meant the most to him. Phone calls, cards, and letters from gay and nongay fans alike poured into Mayya, the upscale Mexican eatery he runs in the fashionable Lincoln Road section of Miami Beach with Veiga, a well-known restaurateur. Many lauded Bean for his gutsiness. Others commended Bean's decision to retire in order to deepen his relationship with Veiga, a story so romantic it seems lifted from a movie script.

For Bean, the outpouring of support came out of left field. After several harrowing years of having to hide his sexual orientation, both as a professional athlete and as a husband, as well as the sudden death of his first partner, whom he identifies only as Sam, Bean feared the kind of antigay heckling he often observed in baseball. Instead, several of his teammates were quoted commenting favorably on Bean's revelation. Still, major league baseball has failed to respond to Bean's vivid description of homophobia in the clubhouse.

The interview took place over the course of two days spent with Bean and Veiga at their elegant glass-and-steel restaurant, which opened in October to positive reviews and large crowds. During the interview Bean's cell phone was constantly ringing, and staff members were regularly knocking on the door to his cubbyhole of an office. Veiga, who is more laid-back than Bean, presides over the food preparation and the restaurant's decor. These days the two are working long hours readying the restaurant for the winter tourist season. They are so busy that their restored Spanish-style home on Biscayne Bay, decorated with Bean's framed uniforms and Veiga's modern art collection, seems occupied only by their maid and three purebred dogs. On my second day there, Bean and Veiga were preparing to host a benefit dinner at Mayya for breast cancer research featuring members of the National Basketball Association's Miami Heat.

At 35 Bean, who runs and plays tennis regularly, looks like he could still roam the outfield in Dodger Stadium. A high school valedictorian and successful businessman to boot, he seems culled from central casting to serve as a paragon of gay male pro athletes. But as an advocate, Bean has his work cut out for him. By coming out, he joins the woefully thin ranks of gay male athletes from professional team sports. Former National Football League players Dave Kopay and Roy Simmons have identified themselves as gay; the only major-league baseball player (besides Bean) to do so was Glenn Burke, a onetime outfielder for the Dodgers and Oakland A's who died of AIDS complications in 1995. All came out after they had retired. And the four major professional sports--baseball, football, basketball, and hockey--have shown little interest in creating a better environment for gay athletes.

Tell me about the coming-out process. Now that you're out, what do you see yourself doing?

I certainly never thought it would be such a big deal. I just got a call from a woman who represents Project Yes in South Florida, an organization that supports gay and lesbian teens and prevents their mistreatment and suicide. I can now see what it means to help give someone a sense of self-worth. I know all about the self-hatred and the shame and how hard it is to get to a point where you feel good about yourself. You can be an ordinary kid who on the outside has a lot going for him but on the inside feels rotten because you have been trained to think negatively about yourself. I'd love to say I helped a few 15-year-olds feel like they are cool too even though they are different.

Will there be a day when there are openly gay professional-team-sports athletes?

It would take someone with the stature of Michael Jordan, someone whose job security was so extreme that he could break down the barriers in Middle America. Martina Navratilova didn't need anyone's help to be number 1 in the world. She did it on her own. But it's 25 guys on the New York Yankees, and they are all good. When you have 25 components, it's easy to replace one of them. After all, a team owner or general manager doesn't necessarily want to be the first guy to sign or re-sign a gay player. That's not necessarily a badge of honor in sports today.

But some teams might see it as a point of pride.

There's not a real sense of love and family in baseball. It's not the family feeling of the '50s Yankees anymore. When you see Roger Clemens leave the Boston Red Sox over a few million bucks, you know it's just business.

Are there steps that could be taken to improve the situation? Why not find five or six retired professional athletes and form an organization?

I couldn't think of a meaner thing to do than pull someone into this. [Laughs] But if someone else was willing and ready, two is much better than one. I just don't think it's a cause yet. It's still at the level of a revelation.

You played with many racial minorities. What did you learn from them?

My first roommate in baseball was a black Puerto Rican guy. I spoke fluent Spanish, so I always spoke Spanish to the Latin guys. But I think in their minds I was this well-to-do kid, a surfer from Southern California. Yet I did identify with them. I knew I was a minority too. Every minute I was on the field, I knew I was different. I could never figure out why I felt so out of place. I wasn't sure I was gay at first, but I knew I was one step away from someone yelling, "Get the fuck out, you don't belong here!"

Did the fear hurt your concentration on the field?

Absolutely. I would hit .350 in the minor leagues, then I'd get to the major leagues, where all my serf-doubts were magnified. It would carry all the way up to the plate. It was a strange feeling: saying goodbye to Sam at the house and then going to the park, getting dressed, looking at my body, and knowing where I'd been the night before. Sexuality is such a big part of who you are. To know that you can't tell the truth under any circumstances is terrible. In the locker room everyone was always talking about girlfriends or wives and what they did last night. My teammates would say, "Let's go pick up some girls tonight." To them it was fun, but it was constant cold water splashed on me.

There's something about the gay thing in professional baseball. It's just right there on the tip of everyone's tongue. If you want to get right at it, you call someone a faggot. I've always hated that word so much because that's me: I'm the guy that everyone hates. Even though they liked me for who they thought I was, if they really knew me, I wouldn't be invited to this party. Nobody ever called me that because of the way I acted or walked, but if you are talking smack on somebody, it's "Fuck you, faggot."

Did you get positive messages about being gay from anyone?

I was supposed to be the all-American kid, and all-American kids don't know anything about gay life. I didn't know anyone who was gay. My stepfather was in the Marines, and then he was a police officer. I couldn't fathom him knowing at all. Here I was a jock; I was supposed to be tough, a ballplayer. I would pray every night: "Let me make it to the big leagues and let me be a good husband and a father." [Bean did marry at age 25, a marriage that lasted nearly four years.]

But you did make a surreptitious visit to San Francisco's Castro Street.

I was with the Padres in San Francisco for a day game in 1993. I was staying at a hotel on Nob Hill. I walked about ten blocks and hailed a cab so no one could trace me to the team hotel. I was thinking, Oh, my God, what have I done? I had heard about the Castro and just wanted to see it for myself. Guys were actually holding hands; I was fascinated. I really wanted to be there, but I was paranoid that some guys on the team would drive through or something.

Tell me about Sam.

I was living in Maryland in 1992, and I had just gotten back from playing in Japan. My wife and I were living with her parents for the winter. I was watching a football game, and she wanted me to go to a fabric store because she did clothing design. I gave in and on the way saw this new gym. And I said, "Let's go to this gym from now on; it's closer." So the first day we went, I mn into Sam. I looked at him, and he was so striking. I'd had a couple of quick interactions with guys a year before, and after each one I told myself, I'm not gay, and I'm never gonna do this again. They were one-night stands after I met someone in a bar on the road. I barely even undressed. When I looked at Sam, I had this major chemical reaction go off. It was like, Oh, my God. He's incredible. And he looked back at me the same way. I was standing right next to my wife, and I played it down.

What was he like?

He was nine years older than I was, and he took great care of himself. He was a beautiful Iranian guy with classic features. I went down to the locker room to change clothes; he came down a little later. I saw him in an environment where it was clear what was going on, though we were not naked. This was the moment of no return, I thought to myself. This was not about having coffee. This was about "Do you want to go have sex as soon as possible?" I was so fed up with my life, I just didn't care. I walked up to him and said, "Hello, my name is--" something besides Billy, of course. "I'm leaving the state in four days," I told him. "I would love to spend time with you." He said, "How's tomorrow?" We had nothing on which to write his phone number. I said it 50 times in my head: I'm not going to forget this phone number, I'm not going to forget this phone number. I had to come up with some kind of lie because my wife could feel me pulling away. So I went to his house. I fell in love with him that day. I never had such a sexual reaction before. Finally, when I was with him, I didn't feel so bad about myself. I loved my wife dearly, and I still do, but it just wasn't the same.

What happened next?

I flew Sam out to San Diego. I was the happiest I'd ever been in my life for seven days. I felt like singing. I basically tripled my expenses to hide him in a hotel. He came to a few games. I wasn't going to leave him tickets every night to sit in the family section. That would have raised questions. I bought a home at the end of that season, and we made it a home together. We lived there for three years. When anyone came over, he had to leave. There were no pictures of us in the house. He used to go out the back door and hide in the car. The day Sam died was the last day I ever spent at the house. Sam made me and everyone around him happy.

What went wrong?

Sam had a double hernia operation. He was healthy. Then he got sick one night, and I took him to the hospital. They said he had a lacerated pancreas. I don't know if it was malpractice, but something went very wrong. I played the next day and didn't tell a single person. The best way I can show respect to him is to say how much he meant to me and how much I miss him.

How did you meet Efrain?

I visited a Cuban friend in Miami during the all-star break in 1995. Sam had died about four months before, and I was still wallowing in the sadness of it. The second night there, we went to Yuca restaurant. I was struck instantly at how handsome and distinguished Efrain was. He sat down and joined us at the table. I went back to Miami again in October for my friend's birthday party, and I went to see Efrain alone. I felt an almost chemical nervousness. He wasn't there, so I left him a message and went home to San Diego. Weeks passed, and he didn't call back. But then, lo and behold, he gives me a call. I got all nervous, like I was 13 asking a girl to go out for the first time. I said, "I haven't stopped thinking about you. I'm not interested in some affair on the side, and I don't know if you are interested in me at all. But I really needed to talk to you, and I really hope you call me again," and then I hung up on him. Now it's a level playing field, I thought. And he called me back. He said, "Why did you hang up on me?' I said, "Because now you are calling for the right reason." [Laughs] He said he couldn't leave the business, but he'd love it if I came for a visit. I told him I had a ticket reserved "for the day after tomorrow." I flew out five times over the off-season, and it was great.

How did you make the decision to retire from baseball?

I told my agent, Dennis [Gilbert], that "if I don't get a major league deal, I'm going to quit." Efrain had never seen me play, and he didn't know the world I was from. He wanted me to be with him but was not really possessive in that way. I had a lot wrapped up in baseball. But I was tired of all the trips up and down between the majors and minors. I had 16 home runs and 80 RBI at Triple-A in '95 and was up in the big leagues for three different trips, but I didn't get to play all that much.

Couldn't you have played several years more?

I was just 32 years old and had learned the art of pinch-hitting, which is a very valuable skill. But I was messed up. I was in love again, and the idea of going through what I went through again with Sam made me really unhappy. In some ways it was an irrational decision, but I felt cornered. I just couldn't imagine being open and back in the league.

Tell me about your manager when you played with the Dodgers, Tommy Lasorda. His son was a gay man who died of complications from AIDS.

I loved playing for Tommy. He was a great guy. I was such a peaches-and-cream-faced kid when I played for him. Tommy would walk by and say, "Every father wants his daughter to marry Bill Bean." I always thought, Why do they have to talk about me like that? Why am I this apple-pie kid when here I am harboring this thing inside me? God's playing tricks on me. It simply reaffirmed that there was something wrong with me. Tommy told a lot of fag jokes, but he joked about everybody. Nobody ever talked about his son. It was something you just didn't talk about.

When you thought about coming out, were you thinking of Martina Navratilova, Greg Louganis, Dave Kopay, or Glenn Burke as role models?

I didn't know who Dave Kopay was, to be honest. Greg and I went to the same high school, Santa Ana [Calif.] High. Athletically, he's the greatest diver who ever lived, and I admire him for that. I would like to sit down and talk to him. But the situations are not parallel. It's not like I woke up one day and said, "If Greg can do it, I can do it." I had heard about Glenn Burke from some teammates who played with him. But with his drug use, homelessness, and AIDS, he represented my worst nightmare of what it meant to come out. It would have had to be a private conversation with another big-league ballplayer. I needed another ballplayer to say to me, "You know what, man, you're gonna be OK. We're in this together." But just how to connect with someone like this, I never figured out. If I opened up, I always feared someone would say, "What are you--a faggot?"

Wasn't coming out publicly difficult?

I didn't sit down and think about how I would feel. After I did the interview with [Miami Herald reporter] Lydia [Martin], but before it came out, I told her that I was not so comfortable with what I said. She said, "Well, Billy, I think you should be proud of yourself, and I think what you said was very compelling." In other words, it's my story and tough shit. I told her after the story came out that I wasn't mad at her. She got me to do something I needed to do. I thought I would handle it better than I did. I felt naked in front of everyone. But it turned out great. The relationships I've repaired have been incredible. I had to be shown examples that life would go on OK.

What was your family's reaction?

The growth of my family has been unbelievable. I brought Efrain home for Thanksgiving and Christmas last year, and it went well. I know my brothers aren't completely cool with it yet. But I'm sure once they realize I still like to surf and still want to play basketball with them, it will be fine.

Learn more about Billy Bean's restaurant, Mayya, and read outtakes from this interview at www.advocate.com