On Aug. 15, I was covering the Idaho Falls Chukars’ home game versus the Helena Brewers. It was a nondescript outing until about 10:30 p.m. MT, when Tom Haudricourt of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel tweeted a link to this story.

Haudricourt’s story broke the news that Helena first baseman David Denson had come out as gay. Denson was batting cleanup that night for Helena.

After the game, I approached Denson, asking for an interview. He agreed at first, but he later asked to wait until the next day. I said that was fine, but I asked if I could get a quote that night. Here’s what he said:

The Associated Press got in touch with me before that, hoping to get some quotes from Denson. I told the AP I could only get one quote, which the editors used. I also told them about an interaction between Denson and a male fan after the game.

“I’m proud of you,” the male said.

“Thank you,” Denson replied.

The AP wrote a story the next day using the quote I got from Denson and the interaction I observed. Here is the link to the AP’s story.

Also, here’s the link to my gamer from the Aug. 15 game, which features a section about Denson at the end. This is what I wrote (the tweet above was added to the story):

Helena outfielder and cleanup hitter David Denson came out as gay, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported Saturday night. Denson is the first openly gay player actively playing for a team affiliated with the MLB.

Denson joins former major leaguers Billy Bean and Glenn Burke as the only affiliated baseball players to ever come out, according to the Sentinel. Bean and Burke came out after their careers ended. Bean helped Denson reach out to the Sentinel, the newspaper reported.

Denson isn’t the first professional baseball player to come out. Sean Conroy, a pitcher for the independent Sonoma Stompers, came out in June.

Through Saturday, Denson has a .255 batting average with four home runs in 159 at-bats for the Brewers this season.