The World’s Loneliest Man (Part II)

As I mentioned in my post The World’s Loneliest Man (Part I), recently I’ve been reading Billy Bean’s autobiography, Going the Other Way: Lessons from a life in and out of Major League Baseball. Bean played major league baseball from 1987 through 1995, and is the only living former major league baseball player to publicly “come out” as a homosexual.

Throughout Bean’s time in baseball he was closeted, and in fact not even any of his friends or his own mother and father knew that he was gay. Bean was a marginal player, and he lived in fear that if he revealed (or if someone discovered) his homosexuality, it would have killed his baseball career.

This is the second excerpt from the book I’ve posted on my blog. In the first one, Bean has finally acknowledged his homosexuality to himself, and has fallen in love with Sam, with whom he secretly lives. In the excerpt below Sam dies of AIDS and Bean is sent to the minor leagues.

Excerpted from Going the Other Way: Lessons from a life in and out of Major League Baseball

After I spent several agonizing hours pacing and fretting, Sam was still deteriorating, I again demanded that the staff “do something.” The medical technician brought over a syringe, placing it in his IV tube.

“This will allow him to rest more comfortably,” he said.

But Sam was calm, eerily so; I was the one who needed sedation. About fifteen minutes later, at about 6 A.M., Sam and I were alone inside the curtain when his breathing became labored. Then he bucked up and down. A beeper sounded.

The medical staff finally leapt into action, Slamming his chest with electric panels and forcing a tube down his throat.

“What the hell is going on?” Now I was screaming.

“He’s in cardiac arrest,” the nurse said.

“What the hell does that mean?”

I knew Sam was gone when I saw the vacant look in his eyes. They kept trying to resuscitate him, but as time went on, their pace slowed. After they pronounced him dead, I sat in a chair next to him for what seemed like an eternity. I hadn’t even had an opportunity to say good-bye. The “doctor” had failed to take any decisive medical action before it was too late. He said something about an infection, or a ruptured pancreas, mumbled condolences, and went back to his rounds as if this kind of thing happened every day. (more…)