First gay mlb player

Glenn Lawrence Burke (November 16, – May 30, ) was an American Major League Baseball (MLB) player for the Los Angeles Dodgers and Oakland Athletics from to He was the first MLB player to come out as gay, announcing it in after he retired. [1]. On June 25, , Sean Conroy, a pitcher for the minor league Sonoma Stompers in California, made history by becoming the first openly gay active professional baseball player.

Glenn Burke played in the World Series, invented the high-five, and was the first to wear Nikes during an MLB game. More important, he came out as the game's first openly gay player. Along with being the first openly gay man to have played in the MLB — he came out in , after leaving the league — Burke and his teammate Dusty Baker are often credited with inventing the high five. Nearly forty years ago, Glenn Burke made the momentous decision to come out publicly as gay — making him the first Major League Baseball player to do so.

Burke was more than just a footnote in the history of home plate celebrations, however. Burke, who also won medals in track events at the Gay Games, went into serious personal and physical decline after being hit by a car on the streets of San Francisco in He died of AIDS complications in I was born in , so the late Seventies, early Eighties was kind of my wheelhouse, as far as being a fan as a kid.

You wonder how many people around us, both then and now, have had that same thought. Homophobia has denied so many people their own greatness, and denied their greatness to the rest of us as well. But during the off-season, Glenn was living the life that he wanted to; living in the Castro in San Francisco, he was free and accepted. But even in the minor leagues, he invited his friend and teammate Marvin Webb over to his room at the Y, when it was pretty obvious that he had a boyfriend staying there with him from California.

But given the lack of support that he had, and the fact that he was always looking over his shoulder in such a tough play game to play, I think that made it difficult for him to live up to his potential and become the player he should have been. Your book makes a good case for Glenn being a much better athlete than his stats would suggest.

He was great athlete, and a phenomenal basketball player as well; I think he considered himself a basketball player first and foremost. A lot of baseball players need time to develop, even after they make it to the majors.

I mean, he starts two games in the NLCS in , and starts one game of the World Series, so that would tell you that the franchise has confidence in this player, right? Dusty Baker, who is someone I admire and obviously trust in terms of baseball wisdom and instincts, says he felt that Glenn was really coming along before it was all suddenly cut off.

I knew Dusty and Glenn were tight, but I was surprised to read how much other players on the Dodgers like Davey Lopes and Steve Garvey really loved Glenn and valued him as a teammate. That was probably most surprising thing for me to discover when I was doing the research: That a rookie fourth outfielder was the most popular player in that clubhouse.

That really says so much about how charismatic, funny and loose Glenn was. Don Sutton and Steve Garvey hated each other, but they were both crying at their lockers when Glenn was traded, and that says so much right there as well. And really, what team had more distractions than the Dodgers? Lasorda was bringing Don Rickles and Frank Sinatra into the clubhouse before games!

Glenn was the least distracting part of that team, and the most popular player. After that book came out, Erik started to get some letters from readers who had their own Glenn stories to tell, and Bobby Glasser was one of them. He told me the whole story. That traffic accident analogy is interesting because that was actually part of his downfall — he was hit by a car.

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But then he has the bad luck of being hit by a car and losing that part of his life, which is a huge blow to him. The same people that he had treated to a lot of parties and perks and things like that, are unwilling to offer him a helping hand when he needs it. First of all, I hope they take away an interesting story about an interesting person.

The second thing, which is a common theme across all three of my books, is understanding the difference between the way you think about something and what you actually do. Also, I loved the quote from David Perry when he was inducting Glenn into the Rainbow Honor Walk outside the White Horse Inn in Oakland, where he said that gay heroes and heroines are all around us, even at home plate.

And I think we all benefit from that. The intention is to show ads that are relevant and engaging to the individual user. Yeah, I could see how that would make a profound impression. Ultimately, what do you hope that a reader will take away from your book?