Billy Bean, RIP

About six weeks ago, Billy Bean, MLB’s Senior Vice President for Diversity, Equity & Inclusion and Special Assistant to the Commissioner, wrote to congratulate me on the publication of CURVEBALL (Post Hill Press). He also accepted my offer of an autographed copy, which I sent. As some of you may know, I based Davey Dean, a character in CURVEBALL, on Billy Bean, who was the second MLB baseball player to come out as gay (Glenn Burke, also came out; like Bean, however, he waited until he retired). My protagonist, Jess Singer, comes out publicly at a press conference at MLB headquarters, hosted by "Davey Dean". Some of you may also know that Billy Bean died three days ago, at the age of 60, of acute myeloid leukemia, after battling the disease for a year. What kind of man, weeks from dying, writes to congratulate an author he doesn't know personally? A good man. A kind man. A man dedicated to the cause of diversity and inclusion that he fought so many years for. I'd like to think that Billy Bean managed to read a few pages of CURVEBALL, because I think he would have liked it. But I guess I'll never know. I do know that it meant a lot to me that he took the time near the end of his time to write to congratulate me. R.I.P, Billy Bean.