Out of the Park

Out of the Park - Former pro-baseball player Billy Bean pursues a new field of dreams. When Bean left behind his life as a professional baseball player, he let go of a dream he had pursued since childhood. But his life as a closeted gay man had grown too stressful, and he could no longer balance the closet with the clubhouse. As a closeted player, he had divorced his wife and secretly moved in with his first lover, Sam. When Sam died of AIDS, Bean was so frightened of his secret being revealed that he didn't attend his lover's funeral. "Why was it so impossible to think that a baseball player could grieve for a man?" he says. "I just didn't think I was worth enough to ask, and that sucked. That was a terrible, terrible decision I made."

Every time I think I've seen everything homophobia can do to our community, I come across a story that catches me by surprise. Can you imagine being so scared that you wouldn't even attend the funeral of your soulmate because your were afraid what others would think? Most people never have to think of that.

Something that a friend of mine who died of AIDS 15 years ago said to me comes to my mind... "We have every right to hate society for what it has done to us." I think he was right. We do have every right to feel that way. I just don't want to let my spirit falter to something like hate. It is dark. It is evil. And it has no future. Of course, living your life in the closet and paralyzed by fear has very little future as well. You might as well be dead because that is no kind of life at all.