Hanifin, it's a real honor and privilege to not only join but support my MLB colleagues, John Coyles and Dr. Larry Westreich. And I appreciate the content of the conference and all the efforts to move forward in this space. I obviously am not an expert in this space. I'm a former player. And one of the things that I learned when I was brought back to MLB was that sharing a lived experience many times allows the most learning to take place. And that is the philosophy that I was, I think, tasked with when I was brought back, as Dr. Hanifin said, in 2014. So what I thought I would do in the short time we're here together today is just share a little context about my life and my career and how I got into this chair in working for the office of the commissioner in New York City and for all of our 30 clubs around baseball. I was raised in a very conservative, military, Catholic family. I'm the oldest of five boys. My dad was a U.S. Marine Corps, or is a U.S. Marine Corps veteran and was a uniformed law enforcement officer for almost a quarter of a century after that. My whole life, I was playing sports. The people that meant the most to me that I looked up to, my heroes, were the baseball players I saw on TV. And then by the age of 22, I was playing major league baseball for the Detroit Tigers. So every person that I looked up to, the culture that I wanted to be a part of, the lessons, the messaging that I was taught, was in that world. I can't remember a day where I didn't have a game as a kid growing up of some kind, football, basketball, or baseball. And so as I started to better understand myself, and the reason that my playing experience is unique in the 152 year history of major league baseball is that I'm one of only two former major league players who've ever publicly disclosed and played in the major leagues in our 152 year history to publicly disclose that they're gay. And that was a secret that I did not understand when I was on my way to the major leagues. I tried to be the person that everyone that was in my world, my family, my culture, every role model, I wanted to be just like them. I got married very young and it wasn't until I was about halfway into my major league career that I was able to, or began to start to process the truth about myself. And that is when a secret life began. And I left my marriage quickly. I met somebody and I was trying to play in the major leagues and hide a person from the entire rest of the world. And that was, as Dr. Hannafin said, I played between 1987 and 1995 before the internet, before you could access resources or find some similarity with yourself and someone else. And the only people that like I ever spent any time with were baseball players. And I was going through something that could have definitely been helped if I was able or trusted to speak to somebody. I had never planned to even speak to my family, which I never did until ultimately two years after my last game as a player. But in the essence of time, I played three seasons with my partner who was diagnosed with HIV on the night before what was my last season as a major league player. And it was just shortly after that, as I was getting ready to start that season that I rushed in, I came home from a game and I found him sprawled out on the floor of our home. And I rushed him to the hospital and he passed away from cardiac arrest in the hospital about seven o'clock in the morning. And I realized that day that I had a one o'clock game and I needed to be at the ballpark immediately. And I realized that I had never shared my secret with anybody but my partner, whose name was Sam. And I had no one to call. And the isolation of the closet really shaped who and what I became, which was somebody who was completely damaged by that isolation. And I finished my last season as a player. And once the structure of that season ended, I walked as far away I could from my life and my home. I moved across the country and I never returned to my baseball playing career. And a lot of people had no idea why I made those choices. And for me at the time, the influences, the stereotypes all of those messages that players and young men like me received about gay men in the early nineties, middle nineties. I believe those to be true. And so I walked away from my career and I never expected baseball to have any inclination or interest that I might be floating around into the world. Baseball is vast. We have a high volume of players from many cultures. The line is long for people who wanna be a part of it. It's very lucrative, but it's also very, very fragile. And that was interestingly for me to look back and I think about the idea that I worked my whole life to get to the major leagues. And I preferred to leave the game that I played and the dream life that I had, as opposed to sitting down and talking to even my own family at the time. And that is a decision that I've had to live with in the ensuing years. And I started to build a life for myself away from baseball. And I never anticipated that baseball would be in a place to accept a gay man, whether a former player or not, because there was no examples that that was the case. And just like John Coyles mentioned and described how the mental health resources and education and the programming was born out of the performance enhancing drug, education, testing and programming. I believe that my participation in this space evolved from that same ability to begin conversations with players. And my job when I was hired as MLB's first ambassador for inclusion was meant to focus on MLB's expansion of adding sexual orientation into the workplace protection conversation. And as a sport of Jackie Robinson, our priority to be an example about respect and acceptance in the workplace. And then, it was quite ironic that for the time that I was able to get in front of players by invitation and talk about a very vulnerable time, the players began to really relate to my unique and singular experience of fear of my truth being found out by the people that make baseball clubs. And that is what is one of the most unique part. And it's very important from an athlete's perspective to understand that in team sports, it takes a consensus or a collection of people to want to have you in that room, in that clubhouse or on that team. And so, the stigma that was attached to mental health care, wellness, we've gotten smarter exponentially over the last few years, but those types of conversations were ultimately linked to that that would be a weakness in a player or another way for a player to be categorized in a way that what might compromise their standing with the organization or the belief that they would be a great long-term investment and so for a baseball team. And so, the unwinding of those years and years and years of conversations that told players to keep things away from your club, internalize the things that might be bothering you, we didn't understand that that was compromising the opportunity to be the best baseball player that you can be or the best husband or family man or partner and all of those ways. And what was very, very interesting is that as I began to work alongside John and Dr. Larry Westreich in our education programming, I kept conveying how our MLB owners were really becoming more and more interested in the bigger picture of getting the absolute most of our athletes and understanding that if there was issues away from the field, they were equally as destructive as issues that would be happening at the field. And so, I started to bridge a conversation about the ways that we could elevate and introduce these conversations, these amazing resources that John mentioned that had been around for 15 or 20 years in ways that were about improvement and health and fitness, and not in a way about fixing a problem. And I took every opportunity that I could to talk about how not only fragile a major league career is, but how wonderful the opportunity is and how fleeting and elusive it can be if you are unable to maximize every moment. It's hard for young athletes to think that their career is not going to last forever when they're young and they're free of injury and pain and sharing their talent or displaying their talent comes easily. But as we've seen some of these examples in recent times, and we're talking about Kevin Love, Naomi Osaka that was mentioned prior, Michael Phelps, willingness to talk. And you're talking about the very, very top of the athletic world. All three of those athletes are compensated beyond imagination, but still their willingness to talk about it is allowing other players to understand that this might be a great investment in themselves. And so alongside that arc and that evolution, it's just so interesting, at least for me, that just even a one-on-one conversation or the willingness to talk about regret that I didn't reach out and how my life might've changed. One conversation, I've had many conversations with my former teammates or my roommate, Brad Osmus, who was a manager in the big leagues, played 18 years as a player, and their frustration that I did not trust our friendship to be looked at beyond the one part of me that I felt was a defining factor. And it didn't have to be that way. And I think when you are isolated and your problem, which is your priority, it becomes front and center and you start to build it into something that may have been solvable by just shining a light on it or discussing it or sharing it and taking the stigma away that we are not perfect and that we are human and that each and every one of us has a life away from the Olympic pool, around the running track, the tennis court, basketball court, or baseball stadium. And I think the last thing that has really been an incredible movement for us was of all the horrific things that we experienced and witnessed last summer with the pandemic, there was an incredible shift with our players specifically. And Dr. Wester, I can follow this up with our players' willingness to reach out for help when we were going through all of the questions during the COVID-19 pandemic. And it seemed like the very first time it was okay to talk about something that caused us anxiety, stress, or maybe caused some depression because it was new and it wasn't reflective on our talent, our physicality. And I think that it's really opened up an amazing platform and opportunity for at least MLB to grow in this space. And it's something that we're really looking forward to. So I really appreciate the chance to share a little bit about my experience. And I look forward to listening to the rest of the panel and the questions that are ensuing. So thank you so much.

MLB player

gay athlete

challenges in baseball industry

inclusion ambassador

mental health in athletes