Glenn Burke
Baseball
You can thank baseball player Glenn Burke for the high five: In 1977, Burke ran on to the field to congratulate Dodgers teammate Dusty Baker on a game-winning home run. Rather than a hug or a handshake, Burke offered an upraised hand and Baker slapped it. The high five went on to become a famous symbol of camaraderie and athletic celebration.
Ironically, Burke was often denied camaraderie from coaches and teammates during his four-year career in professional baseball.
Burke was outgoing, funny and an incredibly gifted athlete. The fact that he was gay was an open secret among his Dodgers teammates and managers. And while Burke maintained players didn’t care, Dodgers general manager Al Campanis reportedly offered to foot the bill for a lavish wedding. To which Burke responded: “To a woman?”
He also had a troubled relationship with Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda, whose son was gay. Burke and Tommy Jr. would hang out together in West Hollywood, something that made the elder Lasorda furious.
After only two seasons with the Dodgers, Burke was traded to Oakland A’s, where he was underutilized and isolated. Some of his Oakland teammates even refused to shower with him. The final “out” in his professional career came when Billy Martin was hired as the A’s manager in 1980. Early in his tenure, Martin stood in the dugout, looked straight at Burke and said, “I don’t want no faggot on my team.” By the end of the 1980 season Burke had been released from his contract.
It was the end of his major league career but, finally free from clubhouse homophobia, Burke was at least able to come out publicly. He even competed in the first Gay Games in 1982 in track and field, and then in the 1986 Games in basketball—proof of what a well-rounded athlete he was.
Burke succumbed to AIDS in 1995 and he always maintained that prejudice against homosexuality “drove me out of baseball sooner than I should have [gone].” Still, he took some pride in his achievements, telling People magazine in 1994 that “they can’t ever say now that a gay man can’t play in the majors, because I’m a gay man and I made it.”
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