Synopses & Reviews
From the only openly gay former major-league baseball player comes an unprecedented chronicle of America's national pastime.
Going the Other Way is the intimate memoir of a man who, in the prime of his career, faced a heartbreaking dilemma and, in time, learned to follow his own path.
As a shirtless Little Leaguer racing around the sun-drenched diamonds of Southern California, Billy Bean imitated his childhood baseball heroes Steve Garvey and Fred Lynn as he dreamed of becoming a professional ballplayer. By virtue of a relentless work ethic, exceptional multi-sport talent, and a quick left-handed swing, Bean became one of the very few athletes to make it to the big leagues, playing in the majors from 1987 to 1995 for the Detroit Tigers, Los Angeles Dodgers, and San Diego Padres.
In Going the Other Way, Bean takes us from the dusty fields of his youth to the college World Series, the minor-league playing diamonds of Glens Falls and Toledo (where, in a nod to his talent, his teammates nicknamed him "Roy Hobbs," the hero of The Natural), to his first game for the Tigers (he tied the record for most hits in a major-league debut), and winter-ball seasons in Latin America.
Bean brings us inside the clubhouse and onto the playing field, offering dead-on insight into the game and the physical and emotional demands it makes on players. Bean's forthright portraits of baseball icons his legendary managers Sparky Anderson and Tommy Lasorda, slugging stars Kirk Gibson and Tony Gwynn, and all-star pitchers Jack Morris and Trevor Hoffman, among many others illuminate what it takes to be great.
Dubbed "the boy of every girl's dream" by Dodger manager Lasorda, Bean solidified his role as a major-league utility player even as he grappled with a secret that made hitting a Roger Clemens fastball look easy: he was a gay man in a brutally anti-gay world. Ultimately, Bean faced an agonizing choice between continuing to play, in secrecy and solitude, the game he loved and the honesty of a loving relationship.
Bean came out to national acclaim in 1999, but Going the Other Way is the first time he has told his story in his own words. By turns heartbreaking and farcical, ruminative and uncensored, the book culminates in a respectful, deeply felt appeal to Major League Baseball and other professional team sports to live up to their promise of equality and opportunity. A testament to the power of a single voice, Going the Other Way is an exemplary American tale that points the way toward a more perfect game, one in which all men and women can pursue their athletic dreams free of prejudice and discrimination.
Review
"Billy Bean's book is candid, generous, and courageous. It adds a new dimension to the world of sports literature." Jim Bouton, former Yankee pitcher and author of Ball Four
Review
"It took a lot of courage for Billy Bean to play in the majors and even more to write about it." Peter Lefcourt, author of The Dreyfus Affair and Eleven Karens
Review
"This gut-wrenching story is an amazing triumph of character over consequences. Billy Bean is an inspiration." Brad Ausmus, all-star catcher, Houston Astros
Review
"Fluently written and compulsively readable....A major contribution to the literature of sport, straight or gay." Richard Greenberg, author of Take Me Out
Synopsis
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Synopsis
Billy Bean is the first major league baseball player to publicly discuss his homosexuality and the first athlete in a professional American team sport to do so since all-pro football player Dave Kopay came out in 1975. By 1996, when Bean retired at age thirty-two from the game he loved after ten years as a pro ballplayer for the Tigers, Dodgers, and Padres, he had become disillusioned by the sport that had defined his life. Bean found himself forced to choose between his love of baseball and the man he loved. It was an agonizing end to a career in which he struggled to make the most of his role as a utility player in America's most physically and emotionally demanding sport. But out of the premature demise of his career, Bean came to see what the game had taught him and helped him to understand what could be done to improve the major leagues for the next generation of young athletes, so they can navigate the challenges and rewards of the game on their own terms. Bean recently starred as himself on HBO's popular Arli$$ and appears frequently as a commentator on sports and politics on national TV.
About the Author
Billy Bean played major-league baseball from 1987 to 1995 for the Detroit Tigers, Los Angeles Dodgers, and San Diego Padres. Born in Santa Ana, California, in 1964, Bean was a multi-sport star at Santa Ana High School, where he was selected valedictorian of his graduating class and went on to become an All-America outfielder twice before graduating from Loyola Marymount University in 1986. He now lives in Miami Beach with his partner Efrain Veiga, with whom he shares a business redeveloping residential properties. Billy's passion for competitive sports remains as strong as ever. Among his many athletic interests, he competes daily in tennis and basketball and often travels around the country playing in organized tournaments, in hopes of raising the visibility for athletes of diversity.
As a slick-fielding Little Leaguer in Marin County, California, Chris Bull dreamed of being a baseball player until he realized that he couldn't get around on a good fastball. Trading his bat for a pen, he became a journalist, so he could instead cover the game as well as many of his other interests. Washington correspondent for The Advocate, Bull is co-author of The Accidental Activist and Perfect Enemies. He is editor of the nonfiction anthologies Come Out Fighting, Witness to Revolution, While the World Sleeps, and co-editor of At Ground Zero. An Alicia Patterson Journalism Fellow, he lives in Washington, D.C., where he roots for his beloved San Francisco Giants from the other side of the country.