10/12/2025
Before we talk about the tragedy, let's talk about the joy. Picture it: October 2nd, 1977. Dodger Stadium. Dusty Baker just hit his 30th home run of the season, a massive achievement. As he rounds the bases and heads for the dugout, his teammate Glenn Burke is waiting for him on deck, hand raised high in the air in pure, unadulterated excitement. Unsure what to do, Baker just reached up and slapped it. In that moment of spontaneous celebration, the high-five was born. That simple, universal gesture of victory and connection was created by one of us.
In the hyper-masculine world of 1970s Major League Baseball, Glenn Burke was an undeniable talent. He was called the next Willie Mays, a charismatic force with boundless potential. And inside the clubhouse, with the men he played alongside, he didn't hide who he was. His teammates on the Los Angeles Dodgers knew he was gay. It wasn’t a whispered rumor; it was an open secret, an accepted part of the team's dynamic. He was popular, the life of the party, and a beloved figure. He even became close friends with the manager's son, Dusty Baker Jr., who later said Burke was like a father figure to him. For a fleeting moment, it seemed possible to be a gay man in the world of professional sports, accepted for your talent and your character.
But while the players in the dugout might have been evolving, the suits in the front office were not. The Dodgers' general manager, Al Campanis, was deeply uncomfortable with Burke's sexuality. He reportedly offered Burke $75,000 to get married to a woman, a sham to project a straight image. When Burke refused, asking, "I suppose you mean to a woman?", his fate was sealed. He was branded a troublemaker not for his actions, but for his identity. The Dodgers traded him to the Oakland A's.
Things only got worse in Oakland. The team's manager, the notoriously volatile Billy Martin, introduced Burke to the team by pointedly using a homophobic slur. The welcome mat was pulled away, replaced with open hostility. The joy was gone. The sense of camaraderie he'd felt with the Dodgers was replaced by isolation and prejudice. Burke's performance suffered under the weight of it all. Rather than live a lie or endure the hatred, he made a decision that was both heartbreaking and an incredible act of self-preservation: he walked away from baseball at the age of 27.
Life after the sport was a brutal comedown. He found a new community in the Castro district of San Francisco, where he was celebrated as a local hero in the gay softball leagues. He could finally be himself without reservation. But the pain of being cast out from his dream ran deep. The man who was once on track to be a superstar struggled to find his footing. He fell into drug addiction, and the vibrant life he had built began to crumble. He ended up homeless, at times incarcerated, a ghost of the golden boy he once was.
His story became intertwined with the other great tragedy that would define our community in that era. In 1994, Burke announced he had AIDS. The disease ravaged his body, the final, cruel chapter in a life marked by so much injustice. He died in 1995, estranged from the sport that had both made him and broken him.
So the next time you see a high-five, whether it's between two athletes on a field or two friends on the street, remember Glenn Burke. He was the man who gave the world that gesture of pure joy, but was denied a place in the game he loved simply for being who he was.
