Billy Bean tips his cap during Dodgers Pride Night in 2023. It turned out to be one of his final public appearances in MLB. | Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports

Billy Bean went through hell on Earth to keep himself closeted during his playing career and then dedicated his life to making sure that no baseball player would have to endure that again.

On the day he died, Major League Baseball had numerous vocal allies in positions of authority and established resources to provide help and support for any employee or player who chose to come out publicly.

That Bean was able to persevere despite so many personal traumas and lead baseball culture on that path toward a greater sense of humanity and empathy was his greatest achievement. The game still has a long way to go, but the fact that it was able to evolve so much in just two decades was ample evidence that Bean’s life was truly well lived.

When Bean came out publicly as gay in 1999 four years after his playing career ended, he was regarded as a curiosity. A career utility man in the big leagues, the attention his story initially drew from the media was mostly of the “Surprise! This baseball player was actually gay!” variety.

Gradually as Bean began taking control of the telling of that story through his autobiography “Going The Other Way” and the MLB Network special “The Story of Billy Bean,” fans got a fuller picture what his life was like as a closeted gay man in baseball.

What we learned was that it was a decade of torment.

In the hypermacho locker room culture of the “chicks dig the long ball” steroid era, Bean decided that his career would be doomed if anyone found out that he was gay. 

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The Cubs and Twins observe a moment of silence in memory of Billy Bean before Tuesday night’s game at Wrigley Field.
Credit: David Banks-USA TODAY Sports

The lengths he went to keep his relationship with his partner secret were horrifying. For example, when Bean’s Padres teammates surprised him after his first major league home run by dropping by his house to share some celebratory beers, Bean asked his boyfriend to hide in the garage and agonized about his peers discovering his partner all night.

Then after his partner later contracted HIV and Bean arrived home to find him collapsed on the floor, he made the decision to drive to a distant hospital because he’d recently made an appearance at the closest one in his Padres uniform and didn’t want anyone to put two and two together.

After his partner died the next day, Bean didn’t attend the funeral for fear of his secret being found out.

Those details are gut wrenching and hard to read. They’re even more difficult to process when listening to Bean tell them and hearing the profound sadness and regret in his voice.

But they also eventually became part of making baseball a better and more understanding place. After coming out, Bean gradually began opening up and being honest about the life he lived. He started working with MLB to tour Spring Training camps and repeatedly told the story of his career in the closet to the next generation of players.

It was nearly impossible to listen to Bean share his pain without being emotionally wrecked. Bean’s honesty and willingness to be open about the most vulnerable parts of his life helped his fellow players understand the agony of the closet with the hope that they would put in the work to ensure that none of their peers would have to endure that in the future.

As a sport that still hasn’t seen an active player come out, baseball still has a lot of work to do. But Bean and his life story played a massive role in moving the game in the right direction.

When Dale Scott came out and was greeted in Spring Training by Joey Votto offering congratulations and saying he was proud of him, that was part of the culture change that Bean was inspiring.

A few years later, after Sean Doolittle endured a heckler unloading homophobic slurs and his bullpenmates confronted the fan and had him ejected, Bean was filled with gratitude. As he declared, “When our players become our ambassadors, it really validates the time and effort.”

Bean always looked back on his playing career with regret that he never let his teammates get to know his full self, particularly because so many of them expressed their support for him after coming out.

As any gay person who came of age in the 1990s can attest, though, it would have taken a herculean leap of faith to assume that his peers would’ve responded to his coming out with the love and support he needed. 

It was a frightening era to be gay just about anywhere, especially within the testosterone-fueled confines of a baseball clubhouse. Bean deserved to give himself all of the empathy and grace that he showed so many other players throughout his life.

His playing career was a tragic story. But as he owned and utilized his tragedy to make baseball a more open and welcoming place, it also became the source of his heroism.

And when the day comes that an active player feels safe and supported enough to come out publicly, that will ultimately be his legacy. 

It’s a profound shame that Bean won’t be here to see it but hopefully he died knowing that when it happens, everyone will remember and celebrate the work he did to make it possible. Which is the perfect epitaph for a true baseball hero.