November 16, 1952– Glenn Burke
“They can’t ever say now that a gay man can’t play in the majors, because I’m a gay man & I made it.”
In 1970, Burke helped lead his Oakland high school basketball team to an undefeated season, a state championship, & all-tournament honors. He was already a great all-around jock who could run the 100 yard dash in 9.7 seconds & was also an outstanding baseball player.
It was his high school baseball skills that caught the eye of the LA Dodgers. One coach dubbed Burke “the next Willie Mays.” Burke was a great professional baseball prospect, but Burke was also gay. There was no such thing as a gay man in professional sports, in the USA, in the 1970s.
Burke played his first game for the Dodgers in 1976. He felt he had to hide his gayness from his teammates. When he began to reveal little bits of his private life, it drew the disapproval of the baseball establishment, of course.
Ironically, the very team that courageously challenged baseball’s status quo of racism in 1947, standing behind Jackie Robinson, did not take the same position when it came to Burke’s gayness.
In an attempt to cover up his homosexuality, the Dodgers’ management offered Burke $75,000 if he would agree to get married. Burke’s sly response:
“You mean to a woman?”
Not only did Burke refuse to participate in any closet charade, he also began an affair with homophobic Dodgers Manager Tommy Lasorda‘s estranged gay son, Tommy Jr. Coach Billy Martin would actually introduce the other players to Burke as: “The Faggot”.
The Dodgers traded Burke to the Oakland Athletics just before the 1979 season. Even though it was his hometown, things in Oakland didn’t improve much for Burke. He refused to live the lie. By the end of the 1979 season, Burke was no longer a professional baseball player.
Many of Burke’s teammates & management were aware that he was gay during his playing career. They also realized that the public’s reaction to Burke’s sexuality & the problems that it provoked, led to the early end of his baseball career.
Burke’s honesty & courage ran way ahead of the rest of society. In 1979, there was no possibility that Burke’s would end any way other than it did, a promising career ending before it truly began.
For Burke, to be a Major League Baseball player wasn’t compromising who he truly was. With the Dodgers, he possessed a quite nontraditional attitude while playing for one of the most corporate sports franchises at the time. Homophobia continues to be the norm in Major League Baseball. But during his era, the attitudes were consistent, & in most cases intensified, in the locker room.
Burke wanted to be both a pro player & an openly gay man, but the conflicting emotions were just too much, despite Burke’s big heart, outsize personality, & athletic prowess.
After being pushed out of the game that he loved, Burke found some solace & acceptance in San Francisco’s Castro District. It was there that Burke became a big celebrity acknowledged for his athleticism & his gay identity. For a while it seemed to be just what Burke needed.
He continued in sports after retiring from professional baseball. He turned to track & won medals in the 100 & 220 meter sprints in the first Gay Games in 1982. He played ball in the 1986 Gay Games. His jersey number at Berkeley High School was retired in his honor.
Burke formally came out of the closet in Inside Sports Magazine in 1982.
Burke turned to drugs to fill the hole in his life when professional sports ended. His cocaine habit destroyed him physically & financially. His leg & foot were crushed when he was hit by a car in San Francisco in 1987. After the accident his life went into a deep decline. He was arrested & jailed for using drugs. For a time he was homeless, living on the streets in the same Castro neighborhood that had once celebrated him.
Burke left this world in spring 1995, taken by AIDS. He was just 42 years old.
The tale of Burke is the troubling tragedy that was faced by so many gay people in his era, unfulfilled dreams. It seems even more so for poor Burke; his dreams were within his grasp. Burke was not the first gay athlete to play professional sports. He was the first who was unwilling to compromise.
I wonder if Burke gave much consideration to the high price that his courage demanded of his life. 30 years after Jackie Robinson broke baseball’s color barrier Burke broke the gay barrier, doing something no one had done before, living as an out gay man in the major leagues. But in the 35 years since, no one else has followed in his cleated shoes. My, smart, sweet, handsome friend Billy Bean went next, coming out of the closet in 1999. But, Burke came out to his teammates while he was still in the league. Bean did it, eloquently, 4 years after he retired in 1995, the same year Burke died.
In a sweet little side note: in 1977, Burke ran onto the field to congratulate his Dodgers teammate Dusty Baker after Baker had hit his 30th home run in the last game of the regular season. Burke raised his hand over his head as Baker jogged home from third base. Not knowing what to do about the upraised hand, Baker reached up & slapped it. This incident may have been the unintentional invention of the high-five. Later, Burke used that high-five when greeting gay guys in the Castro, where it became a symbol of gay identification.
Burke was one of the first inductees into new National Gay & Lesbian Sports Hall Of Fame in 2013. Last year’s Major League All-Star Game was dedicated to Burke in a ceremony during the pregame press conference. The Fox Network broadcast of the game failed to mention Burke, of course. This summer, the Oakland Athletics sponsored a Gay Pride Night in honor of Burke, with Burke’s brother throwing out the ceremonial first pitch.
For more about Burke, try his honest memoir, written with humor & no pity, Out At Home: The Glenn Burke Story (1995). Out: The Glenn Burke Story (2010) is an excellent documentary of his story. It is available on Netflix.
Burke would have been 63 years old today. I truly wish that he was here to celebrate.
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