White Sox Minor Leaguer Anderson Comas Publicly Comes Out as Gay

Chicago White Sox minor leaguer Anderson Comas publicly came out as gay in a message he posted on his Instagram page Sunday.

"This may be my most personal thing I ever share and it's that I'm proudly and happily part of the LGTBQ+ community," he wrote.

Comas discussed how important it was for him to be "an inspiration" to those in baseball who have been told that the sport is not for people who are gay:

"I enjoy my work a lot, being a professional baseball player is the best thing that happened to me so I just wanna say something to those people that says that gay people can not be someone in this life, well look at me I'm Gay and I'm a professional athlete so that didn't stopped me to make my dreams come true, I'm doing this cause I wanna be an inspiration for those like me out there fitting for their dreams, please don't listen to those stupid things that people say about us, fight for your dreams, believe in yourself and go for it."

The White Sox offered their support and shared a statement from assistant general manager Chris Getz:

Comas has spent his career in the minor leagues to this point and is slashing .261/.290/.646 with seven home runs, 81 RBI and six stolen bases in 190 games as a hitter.

The 23-year-old pitched during the 2022 season and posted a 6.35 ERA in 11 appearances.

It is notable Comas is a member of the White Sox. Relief pitcher Liam Hendriks made headlines in 2021 when he wanted to make sure they had a Pride Night before signing with the American League Central team, per James Fegan of The Athletic.

"It wasn't a demand," Hendriks said (h/t Scooby Axson of USA Today). "It was a simple question of, 'Do you guys have a Pride Night?' And if you don't, that will be something that we need to look into that working out, making sure that we can handle it, because I don't want to go necessarily to a team that doesn't do it."

In September 2021, Bryan Ruby became the only active professional baseball player to publicly come out as gay.

Then in August 2022, former San Francisco Giants minor league pitcher Solomon Bates publicly came out as the second minor league player to do so after former Milwaukee Brewers player David Denson.