OPENLY GAY FORMER MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL STAR BILLY BEAN TO APPEAR AT A DIFFERENT LIGHT BOOKSTORE IN WEST HOLLYWOOD ON APRIL 29TH.

Billy Bean has just had published his unprecedented chronicle of major league baseball entitled Going the Other Way: Lessons from In and Out of Major League Baseball (Marlowe & Company) and will read and sign copies at A Different Light on April 29th at 7:30pm.

West Hollywood, CA., April 11, 2003 -- The West Hollywood branch of A Different Light Bookstore, one of the oldest and most respected gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender bookstores in the world (www.ADifferentLightBookstore.com), proudly hosts Billy Bean, the only openly gay former major league baseball player who has chronicled his amazing life inside and outside of the baseball diamond.

In Going the Other Way, Billy Bean tells his remarkable story for the first time in his own words and the timing could not be more appropriate. As news stories that speculate about the sexual orientation of current and retired ballplayers continue to gather enormous interest and the Broadway hit Take Me Out takes on the topic, Billy Bean tells the real inside story of what it was like to grapple with a secret that made hitting a Roger Clemens fastball look easy: he was a gay man in a brutally anti-gay world.

Among Going the Other Ways most newsworthy passages are where Billy Bean:

·   Describes the relentlessly homophobic jokes of Tommy Lasorda as Bean was playing for the Dodgers...even as Lasordas son, a gay man, lay dying from AIDS-related complications.

·   Recounts the agony of playing a spring training game for the Padres just hours after Beans partner, Sam, had died from AIDS, and why he felt even an accidental revelation about the tragic death would have cost him a career he had spent his entire life building.

·   Reflects on the sexual and social hijinks and athletic feats of his fellow players, from high school to his days as a college all-American at Loylola Marymount University to minor league phenomena to major league utility player.

Beans story of isolation and subterfuge may be familiar to millions of gay men and lesbians, and his passion to play big league ball... is shared by thousands of high school and college baseball stars. But the combination of those two struggles offers a rare window into the fiercely competitive and hyper-masculinized arena of major team sports," wrote Robert Lipsyte in The New York Times.

Since 1979, A Different Light Bookstore has been committed to serving the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender community. We have been bookstore, social hall, sanctuary and life-line. We currently operate stores in West Hollywood, San Francisco and Online (www.ADifferentLightBookstore.com).

CONTACT:
Kurt Weber
A Different Light Bookstore
Phone: 310-854-6601
Fax: 310-659-6430
E-mail: kurt@adlbooks.com

Miles Crakow
Crakow PR
Phone: 213-220-2670
E-Mail: Miles10001@yahoo.com