Minor league and MLB prospect baseball star Kieran Lovegrove has publicly come out as bisexual.
Lovegrove opened up about his sexuality while discussing the mental health challenges facing many minor league baseball players during an interview with ESPN published last week.
“Baseball is a game of statistics. And if you want to tell me that I’m the only queer person in baseball, I’m just not going to agree with you,” he said.
“Someone is terrified because it’s a terrifying prospect to come out. I do encourage any one of them to reach out to me.”
Before embracing his sexuality, Lovegrove distanced himself from his loved ones in an effort to hide his bisexuality.
His eternal struggle with his identity and low prospects of making it to the major leagues ended up affecting his mental and physical health.
After years of hiding, he decided to come out to his teammates in 2019 and has recently made the decision to come out to the public.
The 27-year-old athlete, a member of the Double-A Rocket City Trash Pandas (Los Angeles Angels), plans to retire after the 2021 season. Leading up to this, Lovegrove said he wants to shine a light on the difficulty of being in the closet in the sport of baseball. He has played for nine different minor league teams since being drafted in 2012 and has never played in the majors.
Lovegrove is now one of two professional baseball players who have come out as members of the LGBTQ community after Salem-Keizer Volcanoes third baseman Bryan Ruby came out as gay in September.
