Bryan Ruby Announces He's Gay; 1st Active Pro Baseball Player to Come Out

Bryan Ruby, who plays for the Salem-Keizer Volcanoes, publicly announced he is gay.

Scott Gleeson of USA Today noted Ruby is now the only active professional baseball player who has publicly announced he is gay. In an exclusive interview, Ruby told Gleeson:

"I kept thinking about the little 14-year-old me, who was scared because I'm a baseball player who loved country music. 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. I want to help create a world where future generations of baseball players don't have to sacrifice authenticity or who they really are to play the game they love."

Ruby said "being closeted for basically 10 years, it was a struggle the whole time," and opened up about his perspective as a professional athlete.

"I kept having people tell me, 'Be very cautious of who you tell' or 'They don't need to know your personal life,'" he said. "The best way to describe the hiding as an athlete is like you're running with a weighted vest on. It's on all day and you can't take it off. I've been gradually taking that weight off."

Gleeson noted Ruby told his family and friends four years ago and opened up to his teammates during the summer.

The Volcanoes are based in Keizer, Oregon, and play in the Mavericks Independent League but were previously the Class-A affiliate of the San Francisco Giants from 1997 to 2020. Ruby has also played in Austria, Chile, Germany, Guatemala, Peru, and Switzerland since his time at Vassar College.

This comes after Las Vegas Raiders defensive end Carl Nassib announced he is gay in June and donated $100,000 to The Trevor Project.

The Trevor Project provides "crisis intervention and suicide prevention services to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer & questioning (LGBTQ) young people under 25," per the organization's website.

ESPN's Adam Schefter noted Nassib became the first active NFL player to announce he is gay. Michael Sam came out publicly in 2014 prior to the draft and was selected by the St. Louis Rams, but he never appeared in a regular-season game.

Nassib received plenty of immediate support:

In July, Nashville Predators prospect Luke Prokop announced he is gay.

Ruby called Nassib and Prokop "heroes" and said, "each time somebody comes out in industries where queer people have not been historically represented in the mainstream, 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."