Buy Going the Other Way: Lessons from a Life In and Out of Major-League Baseball

Going the Other Way: Lessons from a Life In and Out of Major-League Baseball

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Synopsis

"A heart-tugging romance, a courageous coming-out account, a memoir dizzy with a man's passion for baseball - Going the Other Way is a solid triple. Readers hoping Bean will spill the beans about queer shenanigans in the clubhouses will be disappointed - though former Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda's son and former major leaguer Glenn Burke, both gay, both dead of AIDS, are mentioned briefly. Instead, the retired player and his gifted co-author, gay journalist Bull, focus with engaging candor on the story of a scrawny, solitary kid who transformed himself into a solid-bodied team player; of a sexually confused, deeply closeted gay man who married his college sweetheart; and of a utility player who bounced around the big leagues for a decade, living out a dream and living through a nightmare. Bean's book joins the autobiographies of football player David Kopay and diver Greg Louganis as inspiration for today's gay teen jocks. That's reason enough to applaud it. But any fan of baseball will savor the depth of feeling Bean brings to the story of his journeyman days in a sport he so clearly loved."
Richard Labonte -- Books to Watch Out For

Review

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.