Switch-Hitting: Billy Bean at Bat

By Courtney Andree | Monday, November 3, 2003

In an effort to bolster the College's Coming Out Month festivities, Billy Bean, the former San Diego Padres baseball player, was brought to campus to speak about his new book, Going the Other Way:Lessons from a life in and out of Major League Baseball. Being a few minutes early, I sat in the back of Carpenter 13, duly noting that I was the lone female in the crowd, surrounded mostly by pairs of middle-aged men; I was estranged from the hugs, introductions, and general amiability circulating through the room.

After waiting several minutes for a few additional people, Pam Misener, Coordinator for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Programming, thanked those of us in attendance, "Only half of you are paid. The rest of you will have to be put on the payroll as well!" She proceeded to share her biography and her time with Billy: "I had an opportunity to have lunch with Billy and some other people earlier, and I was surrounded by athletes at the table, and it was really great fun, and at one point Billy politely turned to me and said, 'So what's your sport? How are you connected to athletics?'—'Chasing girls! I started out chasing the guys, which was really good practice for chasing the girls.'"

After this jovial note, Bean took the floor.He expressed his hopes that the presentations he had given to the athletics department and coaching staff earlier in the week would open up a dialogue: "We can expect [athletes] to come forward...not right away. It's brave of them to come into a topic like this." He candidly related his life story and his project by reading a short passage from his book to encourage discussion:"Around noon, I threw on my tank top, shorts, and Nike training shoes and headed to the seashore, where the cloudless sky and the vast expanse of blue-green Atlantic—along with the endorphins coursing through my body—usually acted as Valium to my nerves, no matter how frayed. My body took on the rhythm of the velvet-voiced companion on my Walkman, Natalie Merchant...Had I left too soon?...I'd sacrificed my love of the game to another kind of love. Four months earlier I'd fallen for a wonderful man, Efrain Veiga. We were building a life together. I'd finally achieved the sense of security and stability I lacked while locked in the big-league closet."

With such poetics, the dialogue opened, and one member of the crowd broke the ice: "I remember when you came out it was a huge flurry, a few years ago there were rumors going around about [New York Mets catcher] Mike Piazza. He had to have a press conference just to say'I'm not gay.' What did you think about that?" Mr. Bean responded: "I know him and I played with him for the Dodgers and I was disappointed, but I honestly think that the franchise put him up to it. They wanted the story told...Whether he's hiding a secret or not, it's none of our business...' I have not slept with Mike Piazza; when I do, I'll call you."Billy then spoke out against upper-level management in the Majors and inadequate educational programs for players. "I just remember we would sit in spring training, and the things they talked about were chewing tobacco, putting on a condom, and if you got an STD what it felt like and what it would do. They didn't tell us how to adjust to the big-league life."When someone else asked about equality and affirmative action in sports, Bean responded, "It isn't about affirmative action to get two gay men out on the field."

As the discussion wound down, Billy gleefully told the audience that the producers of the film Chicago had bought the rights to his book, which they plan to make into a TV movie for NBC. Unfortunately, it won't be a musical.

Switch-Hitting: Billy Bean at Bat

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