Former Dodgers Outfielder Receives Posthumous Award From ESPN

Bean, who was 60 when he died in August 2024, spent parts of three seasons in the Dodgers organization (1989-91). He appeared in 51 major league games with Los Angeles during that time, all in the 1989 season, slashing .197/.250/.254.

Bean's on-field accomplishments were dwarfed by what he accomplished in retirement after coming out as gay, becoming the only living MLB player at the time — active or retired — to do so.

In 2014, Bean was named MLB's first-ever Ambassador for Inclusion by former Commissioner Bud Selig. Bean was promoted to the title of Vice President by Commissioner Rob Manfred in 2017, expanding his duties to include anti-bullying efforts.

In his capacity with the league, Bean made a number of appearances at Dodger Stadium, often appearing at Pride Night events.

“The players for the first time are seeing a different ideology then when I was playing,” Bean said in a 2015 interview with the Los Angeles Daily News. “When I was playing, the other players talked about gays and lesbians, it wasn’t something you would put in public press.”

In an interview with Newsweek Sports, Greg Baker spoke about his late husband's commitment to making professional baseball a more inclusive place for those in the LGBTQ+ community.

"He was always there to work things out with other people, to be a coach, encourage all sorts of people who met along the way," Baker told Newsweek Sports. "But I would see him come home at the end of the day at 6 p.m. and sit right there on the counter in the kitchen and get the laptop out and start just tidying things up — making sure he was dotting his I's and crossing his T's."

The award for Bean comes at a delicate moment for MLB, which still lists "inclusiveness" among the values on its careers page, but controversially removed references to "diversity" in March following an executive order by President Donald Trump.

"I know that Billy certainly had a lot more work that he wanted to do, and that I know that there's a lot of work that still needs to be done," Baker told Newsweek Sports. "I just hope that they [Major League Baseball] find a way to continue the mission that he started and he did so well."