Billy Bean Dies: Second MLB Player To Come Out, Later Led Diversity Efforts, Was 60

Billy Bean, a former Los Angeles Dodger who went on to become the first diversity chief for Major League Baseball, died on Tuesday. He was 60.

Major League Baseball said in a statement that the cause was acute myeloid leukemia, but gave no location details.

Bean was the second major league player to come out as gay. Glenn Burke, an outfielder for the Los Angeles Dodgers and Oakland Athletics, announced his sexual orientation after he retired in 1982. Bean retired in 1995 after playing for the Dodgers, Detroit Tigers and San Diego Padres.

Bean was named Major League Baseball’s first ambassador for inclusion in 2014. Since 2022, he had been the organization’s SVP of diversity, equity and inclusion. He worked with all 30 clubs educating players on inclusion and social justice initiatives, and led a social media anti-bullying campaign to support L.G.B.T.Q. youth.

“He made baseball a better institution,” the baseball commissioner, Rob Manfred, said in the statement, “both on and off the field, by the power of his example, his empathy, his communication skills, his deep relationships inside and outside our sport, and his commitment to doing the right thing.”

Of his retirement, done in part to hide his same sex relationship, Bean said, “Baseball, I knew, wasn’t ready for a guy like me.”

No information on survivors was availble.