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Major League Baseball Makes Major Announcements Supporting Gays, Opposing Homophobia

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Major League Baseball today is making two major announcements in support of LGBT people and gay players, and offering posthumous support for its first openly-gay player.

Tonight in Minneapolis Seattle’s Felix Hernandez will throw the first pitch for the American League and St. Louis Cardinals’ Adam Wainwright will open for the National League. But by the time the first pirch is thrown, Major League Baseball will have made two enormous announcments in support of the LGBT community.

First, former MLB outfielder Billy Bean, who played for the Tigers, the Dodgers, and the Padres from 1987-1995, will be named MLB’s ambassador for inclusion. It is the first appointment of its kind. Bean came out as gay after he retired — technically the second MLB player to do so — and penned an autobiography in 2003, Going the Other Way: Lessons from a Life in and out of Major-League Baseball. 

Outsports reports that “Bean’s job will be to assure all MLB stakeholders of an inclusive and equitable workplace and provide awareness and educational resources that help mandate the league’s workplace code of conduct. Bean will focus not just on sexual orientation, but also intersections of race, gender and other issues of diversity.”

A major focus of Bean’s work with the League will be to help end homophobia in the locker rooms, front offices, on the fields and in the stands. Bean will visit all 30 MLB teams within the next year and talk with players, coaches and front-office executives about steps they can take to end homophobia in their ball clubs. He will also be tasked with building partnerships and developing a complete program that will make baseball a model for LGBT inclusion.

“It’s ironic that I am returning to baseball to help erase the same reason I left,” Bean told Outsports in an exclusive interview. Bean left baseball in 1995 shortly after his then-partner passed away. Bean skipped his partner’s funeral to play in a game for the Padres, lest someone discover he was gay.

“Our work is just beginning. I want this generation’s coming out stories to be uplifting, happy, and inspire others to be who they are, and fulfill their true potential. At the end of the day, it’s all about giving everyone the best chance to succeed, to play free of burden. I want every player and all stakeholders of MLB to know that I will be a trusted friend, whether it is for educational purposes, or simply someone who will listen if they need to talk.”

And in another historic announcement, Major League Baseball tonight will recognize Glenn Burke (image, top) as baseball’s first openly-gay player. He played for the L.A. Dodgers and the Oakland Athletics from 1976-1979. He died in 1995 of AIDS-related causes.

An extensive profile of Burke in today’s New York Times notes that “Burke was 27 when he walked out on Major League Baseball, his promising career as an outfielder undone mostly by the burden of being a semicloseted gay man. It was 1980, and it was more important, Burke later explained, to be himself than to be a professional baseball player.”

“It’s harder to be gay in sports than anywhere else, except maybe president,” Burke said in 1982, when he came out publicly in an Inside Sports magazine article. “Baseball is probably the hardest sport of all.”

More than three decades later, and nearly 20 years after Burke’s death, Major League Baseball still has not had an active player publicly disclose that he is gay. There probably are several gay men currently playing, but the sport awaits its Robbie Rogers, its Jason Collins, its Michael Sam.

Attending the game will be Lutha Burke, one of Glenn Burke’s five surviving siblings, who cared for Burke in his final months as he withered and died from the effects of AIDS, and her daughter Alice Rose. Burke died in 1995.

“It was overdue, and Glenn has a story that needs to be told,” Lutha Burke, 66, said over a cup of coffee, sitting beside Rose. “Glenn wouldn’t be upset that it took this long. He’d just say, ‘It’s about time you guys showed up.’ ”

In an interesting note, the Times adds that Burke invented the high-five. And, as the video below states more clearly, it is believed that Burke dated Tommy Lasorda’s son — which was not something that went over well at the Lasorda home.

Few knew he was gay, but rumors percolated. Burke was wildly popular in the clubhouse, known for playing loud music, dancing and spot-on Richard Pryor imitations. He is widely credited with inventing the high-five.

The Dodgers were less enamored. Burke had a strained relationship with Manager Tommy Lasorda, whose son, Tom Lasorda Jr., befriended Burke. (The younger Lasorda died in 1991 from complications from AIDS, though his father routinely cited other illnesses, from pneumonia to cancer, and denied that his son was gay.) Al Campanis, the Dodgers’ vice president, offered Burke bonus money if he married, something he later said was not a bribe but a gesture rooted in tradition, as the Dodgers encouraged family stability and maturity on their roster.

In 2010, The New Civil Rights Movement published a story about Burke being the first and only openly-gay Major League Baseball player, and this video:

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News

‘Civic Emergency’: Why Trump’s $230 Million DOJ Payout Push Raises New Red Flags

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October 22, 2025

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The New York Times’ bombshell report that President Donald Trump is seeking a $230 million payout from the U.S. Department of Justice as compensation for the DOJ’s investigations into him could be even worse than first reported.

According to The New Republic‘s Greg Sargent, in an interview with U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), the Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee, the payout could be made confidentially — at least at first.

Congressman Raskin — who sees this as a “civic emergency” — and Judiciary Democrats are investigating the Trump demand.

“Our reading is that, even though this is a private settlement, it doesn’t have to be disclosed anywhere until there is an accounting of where all the money has gone at the end of the year,” Raskin told Sargent.

READ MORE: ‘Amateur Historian’ Mike Johnson Hails Trump’s Ballroom as ‘Greatest’ White House Upgrade

But according to Raskin, the “domestic Emoluments Clause says the president may not receive any compensation at all from the U.S. government or the states beyond his official salary.”

“This means he cannot be ordering government officials to write checks to the president.”

“Are we going to have presidents from here on in just shaking down the Department of Justice or other parts of the U.S. government for money to put in their pockets?” Raskin asked.

Trump has acknowledged that ultimately he would likely be the one making the final decision on whether to pay himself the $230 million — although his former personal attorney, Todd Blanche, now the Deputy Attorney General, would be among those also involved in the determination.

Sargent alleges that “for Trump to continue seeking these payments as president is even more wildly corrupt. The conflict-of-interest issues involved in Blanche making this decision are obvious. This is probably unconstitutional, too.”

READ MORE: Not a ‘Gut-Wrenching’ Problem: Ron Johnson Shrugs Off Millions Losing Subsidies

He adds, “It’s hard to fathom how bad this is,” and explains that Trump “sought damages from DOJ from the Russia investigation,” and “in 2024, Trump sought damages related to the FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago.”

Raskin says he wants the internal communications between Trump and the DOJ, including any with Blanche.

“We want the entire paper trail,” Raskin told Sargent. “We’re looking for any correspondence, memoranda, or records of conversations between the White House and the Department of Justice. If we had subpoena power, we would be going after that.”

Democrats would need the House majority to obtain subpoena power.

“It goes without saying that anybody in the Trump administration who violates the law is now expecting a pardon from Donald Trump,” Raskin told Sargent, while not specifically mentioning Blanche. “If you want the protection of the president, you need to comply with his every wish.”

READ MORE: ‘Sick’: Jeffries Torches Trump’s ‘Out of Control’ Press Secretary

 

Image via Reuters

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‘Amateur Historian’ Mike Johnson Hails Trump’s Ballroom as ‘Greatest’ White House Upgrade

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18 hours ago

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October 22, 2025

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Speaker of the House Mike Johnson is praising President Donald Trump’s highly controversial 90,000-square-foot ballroom, which requires demolition of part or most of the East Wing of the White House.

Johnson, who often has boasted of being a constitutional lawyer, says that as an “amateur historian” he thinks the Trump addition is the “greatest” improvement to the White House in history.

“This whole dust up about the White House, just by way of quick review — ’cause I’m an amateur historian — you’ll understand,” Johnson told reporters on Wednesday. “The White House has been renovated many times over the years, you understand? I mean, it was built between 1792 and 1800, right?”

READ MORE: ‘Travesty’: Trump Reportedly Seeking ‘Bizarre’ $230 Million Payout From DOJ

“The British burned it down, practically, in 1814, and then they rebuilt it in the early 1820s, and ever since, like, we’ve had many presidents, renovate, and add things to the White House,” the Speaker said. “Teddy Roosevelt built the whole West Wing. Um, who was it? FDR, Taft, I think, added the Oval Office. FDR made additions.”

“I mean, Truman put the — ripped everything up to put a bowling alley in. FDR had added the swimming pool, I think. Barack Obama added a basketball court.”

“President Trump’s gonna add the greatest improvement to the White House in the history of the building,” Johnson declared, “since it was originally constructed in 1800. The ballroom is gonna be glorious.”

The Speaker said that if Democrats win back the White House they will “get to use it, too.”

READ MORE: Not a ‘Gut-Wrenching’ Problem: Ron Johnson Shrugs Off Millions Losing Subsidies

“This is for the American people, and he’s using private funds to do it,” Johnson added. “How in the world could they oppose that? The only reason, the only logical reason, is because they have Trump Derangement Syndrome, and that’s what explains a lot of this, too.”

Some Democrats and legal experts have raised legal and ethical concerns.

READ MORE: Majority Call Trump a ‘Dangerous Dictator’ Leading Nation Off Course: Report

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‘Get in the Game’: Greene Rebukes GOP Leadership on Policy Vision

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20 hours ago

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October 22, 2025

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U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), the once-loyal MAGA soldier whose recent attacks on her own party have led some to wonder if she is the “New Republican Voice of Sanity,” is out with another thrashing of the GOP, this time on health care.

“More of my Republican colleagues are finally talking about the unaffordable health insurance crisis, but yesterday on our GOP conference call Speaker Johnson said he has ideas and pages of policy, but did not say a single policy plan,” she wrote on Wednesday. “I think that is unacceptable.”

Congresswoman Greene did not reserve her criticism for just Republicans.

READ MORE: Majority Call Trump a ‘Dangerous Dictator’ Leading Nation Off Course: Report

Claiming that “Democrats created this nightmare 15 years ago, then made it worse in 2021 by extending the ACA tax credits that are now expiring,” she declared, “I find it unacceptable that Republicans are sitting on the sidelines doing nothing to fix this healthcare disaster that is leading many Americans into financial ruin.”

Numerous reports say some — and including many of Greene’s fellow Georgia residents — will see Obamacare premiums “more than double” unless Congress reinstates the Affordable Care Act subsidies, which Republicans to date have refused to do.

Greene blames Democrats for the expiring subsidies, and alleges that Democrats “are admitting they screwed the whole health insurance system up and they are admitting original Obamacare is now way too expensive.”

Reminding her colleagues that they are the party in power, she called on Republicans “to build the off ramp off of Obamacare in a responsible way, deregulate healthcare and pharmaceuticals and demand price transparency across the board, and incentivize the market in such a way to open up competition which will drive down cost.”

READ MORE: ‘Sick’: Jeffries Torches Trump’s ‘Out of Control’ Press Secretary

“Pick up your bat and ball and get in the game,” she urged, while taking a swipe at MAGA loyalty.

“Our districts voted for us. Our districts sent us to Congress. No one else. No one or any lobby deserves our loyalty and support.”

President Donald Trump, during his first term, promised multiple times he would put out a plan to “repeal and replace” Obamacare. No comprehensive plan ever surfaced. During the 2024 presidential campaign, he said he had the “concepts of a plan.”

Last year in September, KFF reported that “Trump has long talked about making the ACA less expensive, but the question is less expensive for whom. Trump’s past proposals would certainly have made the ACA less expensive for the federal government, but with the trade-off of higher out-of-pocket premiums for people, more uninsured, and higher spending and greater risk for states.”

READ MORE: Not a ‘Gut-Wrenching’ Problem: Ron Johnson Shrugs Off Millions Losing Subsidies

 

Image via Shutterstock

 

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