The first openly gay baseball player also invented the high five

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21-07-2025

We explore some of Wikipedia's oddities in our 7,023,552-part monthly series, Wiki Wormhole.
This week's entry: Glenn Burke
What it's about: A former LA Dodgers outfielder whose four-year career in the majors would be unremarkable apart from two extremely remarkable things: He was the first openly gay major leaguer, and he invented the high five.
Biggest controversy: While Burke didn't come out to the public until 1982—a few years after leaving the majors—he was out to his teammates when he was playing. The reaction was mixed. Burke said at different times that his teammates didn't care, and that 'prejudice drove me out of baseball.' Team captain Davey Lopes said, 'no one cared about his lifestyle,' calling him, 'the life of the team.' But some people did care. According to Burke, Dodgers GM Al Campanis offered to pay for a lavish honeymoon if Burke married. He replied, 'to a woman?'
Wikipedia also says Burke angered manager Tommy Lasorda by befriending his son Tommy Jr., who was also gay. (the cited article says Lasorda was in lifelong denial about his son's sexuality). At the same time, Lasorda is also quoted here as saying, 'Why wouldn't he come out? Why keep that inside?' He also praised Burke as a ballplayer, and seemed bewildered that he wasn't happy on the team and eventually left. But leaving wasn't Burke's choice—the Dodgers traded him midway through his third season.
Strangest fact: The high five didn't exist when Jaws was released, and it started out as a symbol of gay pride. The very first recorded high five took place on October 2, 1977, the last day of the baseball season. Dusty Baker hit his 30th home run of the year, and Burke ran out onto the field to congratulate him. As Baker rounded third, Burke ran out to congratulate him. Burke had his arms in the air, and Baker slapped it. Liking the feel-good gesture, Burke started to high-five gay friends in San Francisco's Castro district, and it quickly became a gay signifier. From there, it spread around the country (and to the straights), and soon became universal.
Thing we were happiest to learn: While Burke didn't have the baseball career someone once hyped as 'the next Willie Mays' might have hoped for, he seemed content with his place in the sport's history. '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.' He came out publicly in 1982, a few years after his baseball career ended, and medaled at the Gay Games (then called the Gay Olympics) in track. He later told People he felt like he had succeeded in breaking down stereotypes.
Thing we were unhappiest to learn: Virtually everything else about the story. Burke may have been accepted in the Dodgers dugout, but the team still traded him away, to the dismay of his teammates. He went to the Oakland As, where manager Billy Martin—one of the most infamous assholes in the history of the sport—introduced him to his new team using a slur. Burke hurt his knee during spring training, and Martin used that as an excuse to send him to the minors for the rest of the year and not renew his contract.
Burke had no illusions about why and how his baseball career ended. 'Prejudice drove me out of baseball sooner than I should have. But I wasn't changing,' he told The New York Times. Burke remained out and proud, but the end of his playing career hit him hard, and he ended up with serious drug problems, ending up homeless for a stretch. He died in 1995 at age 42, from complications of AIDS. (To their credit, the As did give Burke financial support once his diagnosis was made public). After his death, Burke was inducted into baseball's Shrine Of The Eternals. Major League Baseball also honored Burke at the 2014 All-Star Game; Fox's broadcast of the game omitted any mention of him.
Best link to elsewhere on Wikipedia: While modern medicine has rendered AIDS manageable and survivable, it was a death sentence at the time Burke contracted the disease. With the Reagan administration pointedly ignoring AIDS' spread, and the toll it took on gay men in particular, it largely fell to gay and lesbian activists to spread awareness of the disease and garner sympathy for its victims. One of the most powerful and effective statements to that end was The AIDS Quilt. The creation of activist Cleve Jones in 1987, it stitched together memorial panels for Americans who had died of AIDS, Glenn Burke among them. When the quilt was unveiled, it was the size of a football field, and it continued to grow, until the sheer size of it made the scope of the AIDS pandemic impossible to ignore. 37 years later, the Quilt is still a work in progress, measuring 1.3 million square feet, with over 100,000 names sewn into it.
Further down the Wormhole: Glenn Burke's drug of choice later in life was cocaine, which has any number of deleterious effects on the body, including increased risk of stroke and heart attack, cognitive impairment, depression, and gastrointestinal complications. That last one is essentially a fancy medical way of saying flatulence, and while uncontrollable farting is generally seen as a bad thing, a gassy few have blasted their way to fame and fortune as professional farters. We'll look at the first acclaimed flatulist on record, Roland The Farter, as well as some other sweeter-smelling short topics, next month.
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