Going the Other Way

Reviews / Votes

"A passionate memoir of the challenges Bean faced as a closeted gay athlete." -- Sports Illustrated "The courage Bean shows in telling his story is incredible." -- Los Angeles Times "A fresh and insightful book. . . . Bean excels at capturing the rhythms of the game. . . . In telling his story, Bean has lent a hand of support to other ballplayers who might now be facing the same decision." -- San Francisco Chronicle "A surprisingly honest account from a professional athlete . . . . This is a very good book to get a glimpse at what an athlete endures to play the game." -- Gregg's Baseball Bookcase blog "This gut-wrenching story is an amazing triumph of character over circumstances. Billy Bean is an inspiration." -- Brad Ausmus, manager of the Detroit Tigers and former MLB all-star catcher "A story [told] with oral immediacy and winning personality. Sports claimed [Bean] long before homosexuality did, and his love of baseball gives the book its powerful charm." -- Booklist "Billy Bean's book is candid, generous, and courageous. It adds a new dimension to the world of sports literature. Nice going, Billy." -- Jim Bouton, former MLB pitcher for the New York Yankees, Seattle Pilots, Houston Astros and Atlanta Braves, and author of Ball Four "Reads more like an Everyman tale than a manifesto, and is more effective for it." -- New York Daily News "[Bean] tells a remarkable story of his unremarkable career-a paltry .227 average in the majors-and his wrenching struggle with his sexuality. . . . Bean's candor, self-effacing humor, and brutal honesty will win him . . . new [fans]." -- Entertainment Weekly "Fluently written and compulsively readable, Going the Other Way is at once a briskly paced account of life in baseball and the fiercely moving chronicle of a divided heart. It's a major contribution to the literature of sport, straight or gay." -- Richard Greenberg, author of the Tony Award-winning play Take Me Out "It took a lot of courage for Billy Bean to play baseball in the major leagues-and even more to write about it-with insight and humor." -- Peter Lefcourt, author of The Dreyfus Affair and Eleven Karens