Billy Bean's Pitch

His enthusiasm is
infectious, if a little goofy. On the one hand, his
Iron John envisioning of Chicago’s pride celebration
almost makes you want to go out and hoist a beer in
the city of big shoulders. On the other, it makes you
wonder, what’s the force behind those high fives?
What’s the root of Bean’s appeal?

Some would argue,
not without reason, that admiring jocks such as Billy
Bean signals some discomfort with the essential queerness of
gay life. But maybe we also fetishize characters like
him because they symbolize possibility. Having a
professional ballplayer as grand marshal of a pride
parade is a way of showing the world -- and reassuring
ourselves -- that there’s no contradiction
between being gay and being a man.

Remember the
first time you heard the word “faggot”?
Practically every gay man alive today grew up in a
culture that equated gayness with weakness. In the
past 30 years, people like Bean have helped change that.
The fact that they have come out has broadened popular
understanding of what it means to be gay. And today,
with increasing numbers of gay men and women in most
professions living openly, professional team sports may
be the only job category in America -- aside from the
military -- where the closet remains sealed.

That’s
disappointing to many gay sports fans. “It’s
hard to see pride in someone who denies a crucial part
of his existence,” Buzinski says. But Bean, who
calls his book “an explanation of why [pro athletes]
have not been able to come out,” says the
closet is an unfortunate necessity in major league
baseball today.

He wants to be
clear: The one thing he won’t do is tell other
athletes they have to come out. “I took a lot
of heat [after Arli$$] for saying that I was telling
people to stay in the closet. That couldn’t be
further from the truth,” he says. “But
athletes need to know the truth. They need to be aware. If
your livelihood was specifically contingent upon your
ability to work among people who might persecute you,
then it’s a fair decision to keep your life
private -- in my world and from my experience. And I think
if we are judging, as a gay and lesbian community,
people who don’t have [the ability to come out]
yet, I don’t think it’s fair.”

Asked whether
he’s setting the bar impossibly high -- no one ever
comes out with any guarantee that he or she
won’t be persecuted for that decision -- Bean
conjectures that the first active male team-sports pro
to come out will be the center of a “media
frenzy,” causing the player’s life to
“disintegrate in chaos.” The result, he
suggests, could be one massive step backward for gay
rights: “All these kids in high school and
college who are so proud of who they are and have gay
friends and straight friends, it’s going to
send such a negative message. You know what I
mean?”

Then he grounds
himself with an aphorism that he often invokes when the
argument starts getting messy: “It’s like
we’re letting perfect get in the way of
good.”

Although Bean
says he believes in the power of cultural symbols to
advance political causes -- “Look at Christina
Aguilera,” he says. “She’s done
as much as anybody has. It gives me goose bumps. It makes me
so excited. My little niece loves that song
‘Beautiful,’ and she has no issues with
gay people now” -- he doesn’t believe that
fans should expect a pro ballplayer to be our Jackie
Robinson anytime soon.

Instead, he says,
gay fans should push for reforms in the major leagues.
For that movement, he says, “I’m ready to be
the face” -- to get out front and
“demand the most simple thing. To educate athletes,
when they enter the minor leagues, NCAA, on basic
Title 7 antiharassment [laws]. Sensitivity training.
What’s the risk of implementing same-sex partner
health benefits on a pro baseball contract?” (At
least two pro franchises—the Cubs and the
Braves, owned by Tribune Co. and AOL Time Warner
respectively -- are owned by corporations that already offer
these benefits and include nondiscrimination clauses
in their standard contracts.) He sent a copy of his
book to baseball commissioner Bud Selig and requested
a meeting to discuss these matters but has received no
response to date.

Historically,
civil rights advance through cultural movements helmed by
strong leaders, not through the kinds of legal and
bureaucratic reforms that Bean advocates. He admits as
much when he says, “If we never had
African-American images in sports, the human rights crusade
of Martin Luther King, and all those things, it would
have taken so much longer. Because [pro athletes are]
in our home. And we’re watching for them and
we’re rooting for them.”

Is he
contradicting himself? Bean says no. “I think we just
need to get the dialogue out there and not limit it
only to the playing field but also open up the front
office, the stadium workers, the scouts, the umpires
-- and then, soon, the baseball players,” he says.
“In my mind there’s really nothing else
we can do. It’s not like we can tap [someone]
on the shoulder and say, ‘Get ready; it’s time
to take that step.’ ”