© BRIAN HAYES / STATES | 2021 May 14
Bryan Ruby, a member of the Salem-Keizer Volcanoes of the Mavericks Independent Baseball League in Oregon, came out publicly as gay Thursday morning. He’s the first active pro baseball player to come out, though he told USA TODAY Sports “I don’t like the connotation to, ‘coming out.’ Because it’s more like ‘inviting in.’”
Ruby, 25, joins Las Vegas Raiders defensive end Carl Nassib and Nashville Predators prospect Luke Prokop as the only active, out professional male athletes. Ruby, also a country music songwriter, came out to his family four years ago and to his teammates last summer.
He said “I want to help create a world where future generations of baseball players don’t have to sacrifice authenticity of who they really are to play the game they love.”
“I kept thinking about the little 14-year-old me, who was scared because I’m a baseball player who loved country music,” Ruby, 25, told USA TODAY Sports. “Those are worlds where people like me are told they can’t belong. I’m not a hot-shot prospect. But today, you can’t find a single active baseball player who is out publicly.”
Ruby’s team, the Volcanoes, were affiliated with the San Francisco Giants from 1997 to 2020, but went independent after the reorganization of baseball during the COVID-19 season last year. Giants who passed through Salem-Keizer include Tim Lincecum, Buster Posey, Brandon Crawford, Pablo Sandoval, Lance Niekro, Sergio Romo and Conor Gillaspie.
According to Ruby’s LinkedIn profile, he joined the Volcanoes this past May, so no current Giants who spent time in Salem-Keizer played with him. Ruby previously played professionally in Austria, Chile, Germany, Guatemala, Peru and Switzerland, according to the USA TODAY story.
The story broke the morning of the Giants’ series finale with the Brewers, which SF won, 5-1.
Billy Bean, a former MLB player and now MLB’s vice president and special assistant to the commissioner, has a close friendship with Ruby. It started when Ruby wrote him a letter in 2018; the two have kept in touch.
Bean, like other former MLB players, came out publicly after retiring. Glenn Burke, who played for the Oakland Athletics and Los Angeles Dodgers in the 1970’s, came out to his teammates during his playing career.
“Each time somebody comes out in industries where queer people have not been historically represented in the mainstream,” Ruby said, “it helps to crumble the myth that you can’t be yourself. But we’re in the 2020s. It’s about damn time for this.
“If I can help just one person from this, then that’s greater than any single hit or home run or win that I ever get on the field.”
For more details, read the full USA TODAY story here.