Chicago White Sox prospect Anderson Comas bravely took to social media to reveal he is gay and called on others to ‘fight for your dreams’.
Comas signed with Chicago as a free agent in July 2016, where he started off as an outfielder. However, the Dominican was converted to a pitcher before last season, and Comas logged 11.1 innings on the mound for the White Sox's rookie league team in 2022.
The 23-year-old became just the second active MLB minor leaguer to reveal he's gay. On Sunday, Comas wrote an emotional Instagram post to confirm his sexuality and attempt to inspire others.
“This may be my most personal thing I ever share and its that I’m proudly and happily part of the LGBTQ+ community,” Comas wrote. “I’m also a human with a great soul, I’m respectful, I’m a lover, I love my family and friends and that’s what really matters.
“I enjoy my work a lot; being a professional baseball players is the best thing that happened to me so I just wanna say something to those people that says that gay people cannot be someone in this life: well, look at me I’m gay and I’m a professional athlete so that didn’t stop me to make my dreams come true.
“I’m doing this because I wanna be an inspiration for those like me out there fighting 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.”
He added a disclaimer at the top of his post, which read: “If you’re homophobic this post is may not for you or maby yes [sic] so you can see we all matters and we all are the same…”
After his announcement, the White Sox praised him and said on Twitter they were ‘proud’ of the prospect, while team assistant general manager Chris Getz revealed Comas had come out to the team last year.
“I was very pleased that he was comfortable sharing with us in player development,” Getz said.
“I also was happy at the reaction across the organisation, which as you would expect was to support, help and congratulate a teammate. With his social media post today, we all are so proud of Anderson and that he is comfortable sharing such an important personal part of his life so openly.”
Since 2021, two other minor league players, Bryan Ruby and Solomon Bates, have come out but no major leaguer has done so publicly amid his playing career.
Many teammates of Glenn Burke - the former Los Angeles Dodgers and Oakland A’s star in the 1970s - were aware he was gay. Billy Bean, who played for several major league teams in the 1980s and 90s came out after retiring before becoming the MLB’s ambassador for inclusion in 2014.
