A former college baseball player who was one of the first to come out publicly as gay is now a married man. According to Outsports, Ben Larison married his now-husband, Francisco León on March 17 in New York City. Larison revealed how the two first met which was last winter when he was on Instagram.
“While scrolling, I came upon a cute guy, and I did not hesitate to insert myself into his DMs,” Larison said. “All I wrote was, “Hi sir” (why!?). He responded, we chatted, made plans to meet for dinner after I recovered, and then he ghosted me for several days (I sent THREE messages which were left unread).
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“Because I am persistent, I followed up with a fourth message a week or so later, to which he responded and apologized for his unresponsiveness, blaming it on his sleep schedule being out of sync due to spending a month in Mexico with his family. I didn’t buy it, especially because the time difference is only an hour, but we planned to meet for dinner the next week anyway. And what a great first date that proved to be! So great, in fact, that just a year later, at that same restaurant in the West Village of NYC where we first met, we found ourselves celebrating our marriage with our family and closest friends.”
Larison played baseball for Coe College in Iowa where was publicly on the team for two seasons. In 2014, Larison wrote a story for Outsports about being in a relationship with tennis player Matt Kroll and coming out to his teammates. “Shortly after I came out to my teammates, my coach called me into his office,” Larison wrote. “He sat me down, looked straight at me with a grin and said, ‘This is uncharted territory for me.” I knew exactly what he meant. From there he told me that he had grown to love me and that I could have told him long before I told anyone else.
“Further, he said that if I were to go through anything negative related to this issue that I could always come in and talk to him. He told me that he was proud of me and that absolutely nothing would change now that I was open about my sexual orientation.” Larison is now a high school guidance counselor in New York City. León, originally from Mexico, is a mechatronics engineer and aspiring project manager.
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Photo Credit: Kevin Winter / Getty Images
