Petition to admit Glenn Burke to Baseball Hall of Fame

Via Outsmart Magazine:


COOPERSTOWN, NY – More than 15,000 people have joined a breaking sports campaign on Change.org calling on the Baseball Hall of Fame to recognize Major League Baseball’s first openly gay player, Glenn Burke. Burke played for the Los Angeles Dodgers and Oakland Athletics during the late 1970s and early 1980s, was openly gay with his teammates, and is attributed with popularizing the high five.

Jeremy Redlien, a volunteer EMT, president of PFLAG Oneonta/Otsego, and baseball fan from Oneonta, N.Y., launched the campaign on Change.org once he learned Burke has never been recognized by the Baseball Hall of Fame.

“Glenn Burke came out to his teammates at a time when no one else was talking publicly about their sexual orientation, let alone athletes,” said Redlien. “We live in a world where the contributions of gay athletes to the history of sports is often overlooked. It’s time to recognize Burke’s bravery so that young people today can be inspired by this important figure in baseball.”

In addition to being the first Major League Baseball player to come out as gay, Burke is also accredited with popularizing the high five. In a late season game in 1977, Burke’s Dodgers teammate, Dusty Baker, hit a home run. Burke, who was on deck, raised his right hand as Baker crossed the home plate and gave him a high five.

“It’s amazing to think that Glenn Burke not only made history by coming out as gay, but that he also popularized something that millions upon millions of people do, from T-ball players to professional athletes, whenever they want to celebrate a special moment,” added Redlien. “Burke’s story is something that everyone deserves to learn about, as the contributions of gay athletes are all too often overlooked in professional sports.”

Burke’s career in the Major Leagues was short. According to a PBS documentary from 2010, Burke’s sexual orientation caused friction between him and his managers, with a Dodgers official suggesting that Burke should get married to protect the team’s image. Burke retired in 1980, and said a few years later that “prejudice drove me out of baseball sooner than I should have, but I wasn’t changing.”

Burke passed away in 1995, after a battle with substance abuse and HIV/AIDS-related complications.

“I think if Burke had been supported by managers and teammates early on, he would not have left baseball so early, and could have been a contender for the Hall of Fame,” said Redlien. “Instead, Burke died tragically after feeling like he didn’t belong in professional sports. It is time for his favorite sport to give him the respect he always deserved.”

“Jeremy Redlien’s petition on Change.org is mobilizing thousands of people who want to see Glenn Burke honored in some way by the Baseball Hall of Fame,” said Joe Mirabella, campaign manager at Change.org. “Baseball fans are speaking out, and joining Jeremy’s campaign in droves.”


Find the petition HERE.

Glenn Burke and the origin of the "high five"

A segment on the excellent Radiolab show led us to this story by Jon Mooallem on ESPN.com:

[...] Glenn Burke, a young outfielder for the Los Angeles Dodgers in the late 1970s whose astonishing physique and 17-inch biceps earned him the nickname King Kong.

For at least a generation before the Sleets story surfaced, the conventional wisdom had been that Burke invented the high five on Oct. 2, 1977, in front of 46,000 screaming fans at Dodger Stadium.

It was the last day of the regular season, and Dodgers leftfielder Dusty Baker had just gone deep off the Astros' J.R. Richard. It was Baker's 30th home run, making the Dodgers the first team in history to have four sluggers -- Baker, Ron Cey, Steve Garvey and Reggie Smith -- with at least 30 homers each. It was a wild, triumphant moment and a good omen as the Dodgers headed to the playoffs. Burke, waiting on deck, thrust his hand enthusiastically over his head to greet his friend at the plate. Baker, not knowing what to do, smacked it. "His hand was up in the air, and he was arching way back," says Baker, now 62 and managing the Reds. "So I reached up and hit his hand. It seemed like the thing to do."

Burke then stepped up and launched his first major league home run. And as he returned to the dugout, Baker high-fived him. From there, the story goes, the high five went ricocheting around the world. (According to Dodgers team historian Mark Langill, the game was not televised, and no footage survives.)

The high five was a natural outgrowth of Burke's personality. The Oakland native was an irrepressibly charismatic man who, even as a 24-year-old rookie that season, had become the soul of the Dodgers' clubhouse. He did Richard Pryor standup from memory and would stuff towels under his shirt and waddle bowlegged around the dugout, imitating Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda. "He was a joyous, gregarious person," sports agent Abdul-Jalil al-Hakim says of Burke, a friend since childhood. "He could high-five you without necessarily going through the motion with his hand."

History of the HIgh Five
Burke often high fived Dodgers teammate Dusty Baker.

What most people didn't know was that Burke was gay. Following his retirement in 1980, he became the first major leaguer to come out. Even though he tried to keep his sexuality a secret during his playing days, there had been rumors in the clubhouse. And as the 2010 television documentary Out: The Glenn Burke Story revealed, Dodgers executives scrambled to squash those rumors at all costs: In the off-season of 1977, team VP Al Campanis offered Burke $75,000 to get married. (The Dodgers executive later explained the offer not as a bribe but as a "helpful gesture" to pay for Burke's honeymoon.) According to a friend, Burke rejected the marriage deal with a mix of wit and rebelliousness. He told Campanis, "I guess you mean to a woman."


Keep reading HERE.

Glenn Burke documentary to receive national US broadcast

After multiple broadcasts in the San Franciso area, the noted documentary on gay major league baseball player Glenn Burke will now be broadcast nationally on US cable TV.

NEW YORK – July 20, 2011 – “Out. The Glenn Burke Story,” which documents Burke’s legacy as the first openly gay Major League Baseball player, will have its national premiere on VERSUS on Tuesday, August 9, at 10 p.m. ET. Nominated for a Northern California Area Emmy Award and a nominee for Outstanding Documentary at the 22nd Annual GLAAD (Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) Media Awards, “Out. The Glenn Burke Story” originally premiered on and was produced by Comcast SportsNet Bay Area last November.

VERSUS will provide encore presentations of the documentary on Saturday, August 13, at 11 p.m. ET and Wednesday, August 17, at 11 p.m. ET

Glenn Burke, the first openly gay Major League Baseball player, ended his journey through baseball where it began, in Oakland, California. His sports career had many stops along the way, starting as a multi-sport star at Berkeley High School, followed by a stint at the University of Nevada, Reno as a prized basketball recruit, and then into professional baseball with the Los Angeles Dodgers, where he was hailed by one coach as “the next Willie Mays.” Early in his career, Burke felt he had to hide his true self from his teammates. Later, when he began to reveal glimpses into his sexuality, the baseball establishment began to shut him out.


“Out. The Glenn Burke Story” tells the dramatic tale of Burke’s Major League career as an outfielder for the Dodgers and as a starter in Game One of the 1977 World Series, to being traded to the Oakland Athletics the following season, and then walking away in 1980 from the game that he deeply loved. Many of Burke’s teammates were aware of his homosexuality during his playing career, as were members of management. Many of those teammates believe that Burke's sexuality led to the premature derailment of his baseball career.

“Out. The Glenn Burke Story” explores the wedge that was driven between Burke and the Los Angeles Dodgers management, the ensuing similar situation in Oakland that led to Burke’s abrupt retirement, and the hero’s welcome that Burke received in San Francisco’s Castro District after he left professional baseball. The documentary follows him through his public announcement of his homosexuality in a 1982 Inside Sports magazine article and on The Today Show with Bryant Gumbel, to his downward spiral after his split from baseball, a split that drove Burke to drugs and prison, and eventually to living on the same San Francisco streets where he was once recognized as an icon.

Burke’s story took on another level of tragedy when he was diagnosed with AIDS in 1994. At the end of Burke’s life, the game that he claimed had abandoned him so many years before reached out to one of its own. The Oakland A’s found Burke and provided him with constant support in his final months, as did some of his former teammates. “Out. The Glenn Burke Story” features numerous interviews with Burke’s teammates and friends, including Dusty Baker, Davey Lopes, Reggie Smith, Rick Monday, Manny Mota, Rickey Henderson, Claudell Washington, Mike Norris, Shooty Babitt, Tito Fuentes, and former Major Leaguer and gay rights activist Billy Bean.

“Out. The Glenn Burke Story” is produced by Comcast SportsNet Bay Area’s Ted Griggs, David Koppett, Sean Maddison and Doug Harris. The documentary is narrated by Dave Morey, who was inducted into the Bay Area Radio Hall of Fame in the class of 2010 after 26 years as a morning host at KFOG radio in San Francisco and nearly 40 years in broadcasting.

Gay Games Ambassador Billy Bean, a former Major League outfielder, is interviewed in the documentary, saying: “Baseball wasn’t ready for Glenn Burke. He was a pioneer and he caught them off guard.” Bean added, with regard ton dealing with discrimination: “The closet hurts people - forever. Everyone’s career ends, but to do it because you don’t feel you belong there when you’ve proven that you do is damaging. And it affects everything, and I’m sure that’s why Glenn swam in the waters of drugs and alcohol - to take away his frustration.”

Among the videos produced (see them all HERE) to accompany the Glenn Burke documentary are these featuring FGG Ambassador Billy Bean: