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Yahoo
21-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
The first openly gay baseball player also invented the high five
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. More from A.V. 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The Herald Scotland
25-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
Scotland's first gay footballer Zander Murray to host Pride events
The Lunch & Learn session will be hosted at The Social Hub by Zander, who will share his personal journey, the challenges he's faced, and how visibility and representation can help create a more inclusive future for LGBTQ+ athletes. Murray will also host a community dinner at The Social Hub on Thursday 17 July, a celebration of connection, collaboration, and creativity. The former footballer, who played for Lowland League team Gala Fairydean when he came out, said: 'In a city that means so much to me, this kind of event matters. It's not just about being seen. It's about being heard.' Murray became the first openly gay male footballer in Scotland in 2022. Since then, he has become a tireless advocate for inclusivity in sport. Zander Murray during his playing days (Image: Social Hub) He said: 'I was just sitting on a balcony in Benidorm, no Instagram, no Twitter, just me thinking, I'm finally ready. So I made this wee post for the lads on my team. Fell asleep. Woke up to messages from Lorraine Kelly. I'm like, what is going on? I was literally told to get a flight to London to be on her show. It was insane.' 'I signed for a new club just after coming out, and suddenly the BBC documentary dropped early. I was presenting it, doing press, trying to stay match-fit. It was too much. I had to leave pre-season camp early to lead Edinburgh Pride. Two weeks later, I was off to Hong Kong to speak at the Gay Games. The advocacy just took over.' He added: 'You don't get slagged for missing a pass. They go for your sexuality. Twitter, TikTok, the comments. It's brutal. And it messes with your head. You're already under pressure just being a footballer. Add all that, and it's too much.' Murray is now an award-winning keynote speaker, delivering talks and workshops across schools, football academies and corporate organisations including LinkedIn, Morgan Stanley, UEFA and the Hong Kong Gay Games, helping to shift attitudes and win over hearts and minds. Zander Murray will appear at The Social Hub in Glasgow (Image: Social Hub) He said: 'I go into rooms of young boys and ask three questions. Who's heard homophobic language this month? In this club? Who's said it? And after I tell my story, you can see the penny drop. That moment is when things start to change.' Murray has travelled across the UK and internationally for advocacy work, from the Gay Games in Hong Kong to Pride events in Manchester and London, but says returning to Glasgow always hits differently. 'Any work in Glasgow means everything to me. I don't have to slow my voice down. The crowds get it. I'm from here. It's personal. I see my younger self in all of them.' 'You walk into a room in the east end and the lads are pure giggling, acting daft. But once you tell them what it was like growing up gay in a scheme, they get it. You see the shift happen in real time. That's the power of doing it here.' 'When I saw my shirt in the museum at Hampden, next to legends like Sir Alex Ferguson and Denis Law, I felt like a total imposter. But then I thought, what if 13-year-old me saw that, that could've saved my life.' 'They're smashing it at The Social Hub. Hosting sober events, listening, adapting. You feel seen there, and it's actually for the community.'
Newsroom
30-04-2025
- Business
- Newsroom
Auckland drops out of hosting World Gay Games, can't back Lions tour
Auckland is quitting the race to hold the 2030 Gay Games, and says a lack of funding is also putting a string of other potential major event hostings, including the Lions rugby tour, at risk. The council's culture and events agency Tataki Auckland Unlimited (TAU) said it had pursued the hosting rights for the 2030 games, over 18 months, but a shortage of long-term funds meant it couldn't continue into the next round, in May. Auckland mayor Wayne Brown's proposed reduction in ratepayer funding for major events is one of the factors also creating uncertainty about the future of the Sail GP regatta. And the women's and men's Lions tours and a cricket world cup event later this decade are also beyond Tataki Auckland Unlimited's ability to agree funding. 'It was an immense effort to have Auckland selected in December 2024 as one of three finalist cities to work through to the ultimate round of (Gay Games) hosting requirements,' said TAU chief executive Nick Hill, in a memo on Monday this week to the mayor and councillors, seen by Newsroom. 'The Gay Games is the biggest cultural and sporting event for LGBTQIA+ athletes,' said Hill of the 10-day event staged every four years. Auckland was down to the final three in bidding to host the 2030 World Gay Games. Auckland Council and the government were to share the $10 million cost, for an event expected to deliver nearly 100,000 visitor nights, and contribute $20.8m to the regional economy. Hill said the possible hosting had already attracted significant interest from commercial sponsors, but council's proposed level of event funding did not allow it to commit to hostings beyond each financial year. 'TAU went into the Gay Games bid process (late 2023) in good faith, on the assumption that the issue of major events funding would be resolved by now,' said Hill. The memo also suggested the same lack of longer term funding posed questions over bids for the Women's Lions rugby tour in 2027, the Men's Lions tour in 2029, and the ICC T20 Cricket World Cup in 2028. Hill said the risk to those events had not been made public and was shared with councillors in confidence. The agency is caught between the Government's decision not to allow Auckland Council to create a hotel levy to help fund events and tourism attraction, and the council's own current proposal to shrink major event funding to a record low, of around $7m. This compares with funding for events and tourism attraction of around $28m when Brown's predecessor Phil Goff took office in 2016. Goff halved that amount of ratepayer funding, but his idea of replacing that sum by rating hotel and motel properties for an extra $14m, was eventually dumped after being suspended during the Covid-19 pandemic. That funding was never restored and Wayne Brown, elected mayor in 2022, proposed a further cut, hoping in vain that the Government would approve a regional hotel bed levy. The hotel sector had made an impassioned plea to Auckland Council to restore major event funding, with the strategic director at the Hotel Council Aotearoa, James Doolan, penning an op-ed in March. 'If event attraction and destination marketing is as important as you say it is, please stop wasting money elsewhere,' wrote Doolan. 'Take a tiny part of your annual budget and return tourism funding to where it was a decade ago. This stuff is important to all Aucklanders and it drives future economic growth.' Another immediate event problem looming is the next Auckland round of Sir Russell Coutt's Sail GP regatta in early 2026. The government is contracted to help fund one more round of the series, but Coutts is keen to enter a six-year deal with Auckland. 'We want it to be an annual event on Auckland's calendar,' wrote Hill to the mayor and councillors. 'However, we can only stretch to commit to a one-year deal in 2026.' Newsroom has approached the mayor, Wayne Brown, for comment. At the council's governing body meeting in March, he observed that the Prime Minister had kept telling him local bodies should focus on core essential services and no longer fund 'nice-to-haves'. 'The PM has been giving me a lecture all year – I get incessant lectures – we're not allowed to have anything nice-to-have.'
Telegraph
27-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Splash! A Century of Swimming and Style: From Pamela Anderson's famous one-piece to Tom Daley's tiny Speedos
The star exhibit of the Design Museum 's new show Splash! A Century of Swimming and Style is Pamela Anderson 's iconic flaming-red swimsuit from her Baywatch days. But bereft of her big bouncing bosoms, this tiny lycra number, suspended from two wires behind a glass case in the basement of the museum, feels a bit deflated. The only bits of the display faithful to the original are two prosthetic and very pert nipples nestled within the folds of the fabric and seemingly in the wrong place by about an inch. Splash! A Century of Swimming and Style intends to celebrate 'our enduring love of the water over the last 100 years' by showcasing swimming's evolution in its social, cultural, technological and environmental contexts. The exhibition is divided thematically, with each of the three main spaces of the museum's basement dedicated to one of the three major swimming arenas: pools, lidos, and nature. While the carefully thought-out 1950s retro pop ambience initially comes across as vibrant, an imminent sensation of drowning takes hold as one dives deeper into this subterranean hoarder's paradise of any and all swimming-related paraphernalia. At best it is a 'fun' exhibition (not necessarily a bad thing) which ping-pongs the viewer's attention between an abundance of trinkets, advertisements, magazines, posters, goggles, rubber pool slides, costume sketches, swimming pool designs and rather unsightly swimming costumes covering the expanse of modern swimming history. As with all decent British museums these days, a sociopolitical angle has not been neglected, even for this seemingly benign activity. Playing on a loop in the first room is a video about The Subversive Sirens, who define themselves as 'a Minnesota-based synchronised swimming team committed to black liberation, equity in swimming/aquatic arts, radical body acceptance, and queer visibility' and won a joint gold medal for their free combo routine at the Gay Games in 2018. The video of their practice includes members of the team talking about what they enjoy about synchronised swimming: 'Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare. We're not gonna wait for the world to be, like this perfect 'da da da da da' to start living free now.' While there are some engaging artefacts in this first room – the first Olympic solo swimming gold medal won by a British woman, Lucy Morton at the Paris Olympics in 1924; the microscopic Speedos worn by Tom Daley at the Tokyo Olympics, where he won gold in 2021 – it was quite difficult to concentrate over the omnipresent sound of the liberation of swimming being played in a running loop. 'One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight' go The Subversive Sirens as they practice their neverending underwater routine. How tiring it must be for them to be trapped underwater in the basement of the Design Museum in perpetuity. The Splash! A Century of Swimming and Style exhibition is certainly a spectacle and will be especially worthwhile for those who are swimming enthusiasts, nostalgic for the lido age, or curious about the sociopolitical importance of swimming since the 1920s. Come for the refreshing aquatic levity and stay for the Facekini, Monokini (topless bikini), and a silver swimming thong; if this is the way modern swimming is headed, then let's bring back the bathing machines, none of which are on display. This is a good opportunity for viewers to dip their toes into the nourishing waters of swimming sub-culture; without any risk of verrucas.
