kRHEative.

lilnasxvevo:

“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.”

Okay, so, for Pride Month I changed my URL to glennburke, while being fully aware that most people probably don’t know who Glenn Burke was. 

Glenn Burke was the first and only Major League Baseball (MLB) player that we know of to come out to his teammates. He also came out publicly after he retired, and is again the only MLB player to ever do so. 

He was also most likely the inventor of the high five. I love the story behind it: 

On October 5, 1977, Burke ran onto the field to congratulate his Dodgers teammate Dusty Baker after Baker 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 slapped it.

There are other stories about where the high five came from, but this one has the most proof. 

Here are some other cool facts about Glenn Burke:

• He had 17 inch (presumably in circumference) biceps, which is why his teammates called him “King Kong”.
  
• Early in his career, a coach called him “the next Willie Mays”.
• In 1995, he wrote an autobiography called Out at Home. 
• After he retired from baseball, he moved to the Castro, where he used the high five with other gay people in his community. The high five “started out as a symbol of gay pride and identification”. 
• His former teammate on the Dodgers, Davey Lopes, called him “the life of the team”. 

Here are some less cool facts:

• Many people thought he could have been an outstanding player if homophobia hadn’t gotten so much in his way. 
  
• His first team, the Dodgers, mostly didn’t care that he was gay, but their manager did. Manager Tommy Lasorda didn’t like Burke and was angry when Burke befriended Lasorda’s gay son, Tommy Lasorda Jr. He was traded to the Oakland Athletics after that, and they were much less accepting. 

He died of AIDS in 1995. I don’t want anyone to forget him.