Happy Birthday to Billy Bean!

No, he’s not the Billy Bean who was the focus of the Brad Pitt baseball flick Moneyball.

That guy is Billy Beane.

But this Billy is also a former pro baseball player who has also got a fascinating life story that I hope gets made into a movie someday.

It’s been 13 years since Billy came out of the closet with a heart-breaking memoir Going the Other Way. He did an interview with Diane Sawyer that I was watching while at the Gold’s Gym in Long Beach. I was so riveted that I got off the elliptical machine to completely focus on what Billy was saying. I’ll never forget it because as he cried on the air, I also wept in a way that I prefer not to do publicly.

He was telling of how he was playing for the San Diego Padres as a closeted young man and his lover died unexpectedly. Billy could not mourn him for fear of being outed and it took an emotional toll that resulted in his baseball career ending prematurely after 12 years in the major leagues.

Billy, who turns 47 years old today, came out after his playing days but is still one of the very few former pro athletes to do so.

“I think kids at this generation are light years ahead of where we were,” Billy told me in an interview we did in 2006. “They are so much more aware because of the Internet and blogs. We had to interact face to face which kept us from doing that. They are so much more progressive in so many ways.”

He’s gone on to have a successful real estate career, plays serious competitive tennis and has remained in the spotlight as a public speaker telling his story.