Gay baseball player comes out on live TV
Image: Photo: Facebook / Ryan Jordan Santana.
BASEBALL player Ryan Jordan Santana, an American athlete who plays for Adelaide team the Golden Grove Dodgers, came out live on TV this week.
Santana came out to his teammates and his mother as part of the TLC channel series This is Life Live.
The show’s host asked Santana, “Why come out to your family on national television?”
He replied, “I feel like I struggled with it, and I know there are others struggling with their sexuality as well.
“And I feel like I don’t want them to feel alone or by themselves. And I want to let them know they are not alone. I want to be some kind of outlet, a light.”
Santana said he realised he was attracted to men at age 15, but kept it a secret. He said he had only been able to admit his sexuality aloud to himself in the last year.
“I lived a lie my whole life,” said the baseball player. “I was too afraid to tell my teammates.”
People in Santana’s life have been accepting of his coming out.
“It doesn’t change anything [in] our friendship,” said his roommate.
This week another prominent athlete came out, with Olympic pole vaulter Shawn Barber also publicly revealing he is gay.
“Gay and proud!” he posted on Facebook.
“To my friends, you are always my friends and I love you too!”
It’s a weird feature of the AFL culture that not a single gay player at the top level has ever come out in the men’s game, but now there’s WAFL and there are many out players in the women’s league. Ian Roberts was an NRL legend who was open about his sexuality two decades ago and I don’t think it was to his detriment as a sportsman or public figure.