In the last decade, most of the major American men’s professional leagues have seen athletes come out as gay. One of the first incidences of this was Jason Collins. Collins was the first openly gay player in the NBA. He first made this announcement in 2013 when he was a member of the Washington Wizards. A year later, Michael Sam became the first openly gay player drafted to the NFL. Drafted by the St. Louis Rams in 2014, Sam had a short-lived, but inspiring career. Seven years later, Oakland Raider Carl Nassib announced he too was gay. Since Sam never played an official game in the NFL, Nassib became the first openly gay active player.
Next, it was baseball’s turn. In 2015, David Denson became the first player affiliated with an MLB team to come out as openly gay. Denson played within the Milwaukee Brewers system from 2013-2017. However, Denson never played a game in the Major League. He spent his entire four-year career playing in the minor leagues. So, the MLB still has seen an openly gay player play in one of their major league games.
Anderson Comás Speaks
However, it is still great to see any athlete be comfortable in their own skin. That is why Sunday (Feb. 19) was another terrific day for the MLB. Sunday saw minor league pitcher Anderson Comás announce he is openly gay via Instagram. In his post, he asserted that homophobes were not welcome and that he is a lover with a great soul. “This may be my most personal thing I ever share and it’s that I’m proudly and happily part of the LGTBQ+ community,” he wrote. “I’m also a human with a great soul, I’m respectful, I’m a lover, I love my family and friends and that’s what really matters, I enjoy my work a lot, being a professional baseball player is the best thing that happened to me so I just wanna say something to those people that says that gay people can not be someone in this life, well look at me I’m Gay and I’m a professional athlete so that didn’t stopped me to make my dreams come true.”
Comás is currently a member of the Arizona White Sox, a minor-league affiliate of the Chicago White Sox. He has not played a game yet in the majors. But, the Dominican Republic native still has a lot of his career ahead of him. The White Sox’s assistant general manager of player development Chris Getz also released a statement celebrating the moment. “Anderson first shared his news with us last year. And I was very pleased that he was comfortable sharing with us in player development,” he said. “I also was happy at the reaction across the organization, which as you would expect was to support, help and congratulate a teammate. With his social media post today, we all are so proud of Anderson and that he is comfortable sharing such an important personal part of his life so openly.”
[Via]