Once again the LGBT community can stand up and warmly welcome another leader into our community. Baseball player, David Denson, a first basemen for the Milwaukee Brewers’  rookie affiliate in Helena, Montana just announced that he is gay. This is a big step in baseball history as this means that Denson is the first openly, active, gay baseball player.

The 20 year old baseball player came out of the closet to the public in a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Article. Previous to that he had only told his family and his team mates. According to Denson they opened their arms and accepted him as an equal. These were his words,

“They said, ‘You’re still our team mate. You’re still our brother. We kind of had an idea, but your sexuality has nothing to do with your ability. You’re still a ballplayer at the end of the day. We don’t treat you any different. We’ve got your back.”

Recently many retired athletes have come out as being gay but it was a big step for Denson as he was the first current baseball player to come out as being gay. Lucky for him he had help with retired professional baseball player Billy Bean who had come out as gay in 1995. Bean coached him through coming out and was there by his side.

In Denson’s coming out article he stated that when he joined baseball in 2013 he had kept his sexuality a secret and had no intention of coming out but after a while it began weighing on him and now we are proud to say that he has finally, openly joined the gay community in 2015.

His gay coach Bean has said, “David is very humble. It’s really about being his best self. He’s a great baseball player, but he needs to be his best self to get to the big leagues.”

Once again we congratulate this baseball player on coming out as gay! Welcome to the community and thank you for making a huge step in history.