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Dusty Baker heard the voice before. The year was 1995 and Baker, baseball’s renaissance man, was in his third year managing the Giants. He’d been presented with that drawl—its honeyed accent, its dulcet melodies and its gravelly undertones.
He couldn’t recognize the man who delivered the address, though. The man was gaunt, his teeth weathered. He walked with a noticeable limp—his right leg was bound together with iron rods. Lesions sprawled across his lower extremities.
“Johnny B,” was all Baker needed to hear to know it came from Glenn Burke, his former teammate on the Dodgers. Yes, it was Burke, the man who embraced Baker with the first documented ‘high-five’ after a home run, the man who donned the first pair of Nike shoes during an MLB game, the man deemed the life of the locker room as a rookie.
Burke, MLB’s first active gay player, was one of Baker’s closest friends during the Dodgers’ run to the 1977 World Series.
When Baker turned, he was greeted by an underweight man, a husk of the 6-foot, 225-pound colossus he once knew.
Glenn Burke was dying of AIDS.
*****
Burke’s athletic gifts were forged not on the baseball diamond, but the basketball courts that pockmarked his native Bay Area. He would spend days on asphalt, endlessly working on his game. Leisure time evaporated as ball struck earth. His family couldn’t help but take notice.
“My mom couldn't peel that uniform off of him after he played ball,” Burke’s sister, Lutha Davis, told Sporting News. “He literally would have to go to sleep in it.
“I didn't know if he was gonna be great, but I knew he was gonna be serious.”
During his teenage years, Burke was both. He frequented a number of his neighborhood’s notable basketball landmarks. From Harmon Gym and Grove Street Park to Bushrod, Burke shined. His showmanship was alluring, his physique titan-like. Burke had a penchant for acrobatic finishes, former teammate Marvin Buckley said. He’d leap to the heavens before contorting his body to flick the ball off glass.
“Glenn was a smaller version of Michael Jordan,” said Vince Trahan, Burke’s childhood friend.
At Berkeley High School, Burke was a household name. On the diamond, he was renowned for his “light tower power”, dizzying speed and range in the outfield. The hardwood, meanwhile, brought out Burke’s artistry. He scored points in bunches and took home the North California Player of the Year honors after leading the Yellow Jackets to a Tournament of Champions title as a senior.
Burke tried his luck at college basketball, even recording 35 points in his first game at Nevada. But ideological differences with the coaching staff led him to leave the team five games later.
Baseball still beckoned for Burke, however. Selected in the 17th round of the 1972 MLB Draft, Burke was raw. But his traits—the monstrous swing, twitchy athleticism and those elegant strides—conjured wonder within Los Angeles’ front office.
Burke’s travels took him across America’s backroads: to Spokane, Wash.; Ogden, Utah; Daytona Beach, Fla.; Bakersfield, Cali.; Waterbury, Conn.; and Albuquerque, New Mexico. He impressed along the way—Burke hit .300 in three of his five minor league seasons and tallied a league-best 63 stolen bases in 1976.
The time on the road also gave Burke a chance to explore his sexuality. By the end of the 1976 season, Burke knew he was gay, but he was not ready to announce it to the world. He would spurn motels and team houses for rooms in YMCAs. The arrangement offered Burke just enough space to invite friends and lovers over.
And during offseasons, Burke would return to his native Berkeley, basking in the glory of his burgeoning career. By day, he was the pride of the community, a marvel among men, outfitted in brass and gold as he climbed up the minor league ladder.
And at night, Burke would hit the town. He was a regular in the Castro district, a San Francisco neighborhood that served as the epicenter of gay life in the United States in the 1970s.
“I’m just human like everybody else,” Burke told The Today’s Show Bryant Gumbel in 1982. “And I’m a man. If I’m gay, I’m still a man. And that’s the way I carry myself.”
*****
By 1977, Burke was a full-time big-leaguer. He played sparingly for much of his maiden season. But his talents were already drawing buzz from some of the organization’s longest-serving veterans.
He was “built like a young Willie Mays”, Baker said, noting that Burke’s on-field appearance was matched by his off-field swagger. Burke was the life of the party, a glistening image of the machismo present within stadium walls. He was confident. He was clean-shaven. He was effective.
There were signs that Burke was different from those he shared the locker room with. He expressed little interest in women and kept his distance from his teammates.
Nevertheless, Burke was a hit among his counterparts. His Black teammates guided him along the way, just as their forebears—Hank Aaron, George Scott and others—did for them.
“[We] kinda had an obligation to help these guys the same way,” Baker said. “We were just passing it on.”
Burke absorbed plenty of information as a rookie. Soon, he became part of history himself. In the final game of the regular season, Baker deposited a JR Richard delivery over the left center bleachers.
With his strike, the Dodgers became the first team in league history to have four players hit the 30-homer plateau—Steve Garvey, Ron Cey and Reggie Smith preceded him in the weeks earlier.
Burke, privy to Baker’s struggles with Richard, the NL’s premier power pitcher, raised his right hand in defiance as Baker strided back to the dugout. Baker had never been presented with such a gesture before.
He responded with a flourish, slapping his teammate’s hand. It was baseball’s first-ever high five.
“It’s not me,” Baker said. “All I did was reciprocate [what] Glenn [did].”
Burke followed up the blast with one of his own, ripping one of Richard’s signature fastballs into the left field stands. Baker was one of the first players to greet him in the dugout. He offered him a high-five in return.
A trend-setter in more ways than one, Burke was also the first big-leaguer to wear Nikes in a game. He dyed a pair of Nike Astrograbbers Dodger blue ahead of Los Angeles’ trip to Philadelphia’s Veteran Stadium and its AstroTurf field.
“Glenn loved to dress,” Davis said. “He really did like to dress. Like something from a GQ magazine.”
Burke capped off his rookie season with three appearances and one base hit in the World Series. He wasn’t a star yet. But his on-field exploits—and off-field personality—appeared to suggest a breakthrough was on the horizon.
“Man, my partner was in the World Series, man,” Trahan said. “OK, OK, in the World Series, man. Started in center field, man, you know, got a hit. Yeah, [the Yankees] won, but just to see my partner…I thank God.”
*****
By the start of the 1978 season, Burke was on the trading block. Management, he alleged, conspired to get rid of him after being made aware of his sexuality.
Dodgers general manager Al Campanis paid Burke a visit in his Bay Area home during the offseason. He presented his backup outfielder with a proposal: if Burke were to get married, he’d be given a lavish $75,000 honeymoon, equivalent to a full-year’s salary.
“I guess you mean to a woman,” Burke replied. He declined.
His friendship with manager Tommy Lasorda’s son, Tommy Jr., complicated matters. Tommy Jr., better known as Spunky, was openly gay and died of AIDS complications in 1991. His father never publicly acknowledged his son’s sexuality or cause of death.
The roof was caving in on Burke, his sister said. Rumors of his departure sprawled across newspaper clippings. He remained as popular as ever in the locker room. But the abyss was approaching.
In May 1978, Burke was traded to the Athletics for aging outfielder Billy North. The move didn’t come as a shock to his teammates—the whispers were hard to ignore. Still, many of them wept as Burke’s locker was emptied out.
“He brought that team together in a lot of ways,” said Andrew Maraniss, the author of Burke's biography, "Singled Out: The True Story of Glenn Burke." “Black players, white players, Latino players were all drawn to Glenn, who had a lot of charisma.”
Burke toiled in his hometown. Billy Martin, Oakland’s then-manager, was an ardent homophobe, brandishing Burke with a homophobic slur when introducing him to his new teammates. That same term would rain down the Oakland Coliseum concourses throughout Burke’s tenure.
“I believe he was hurt. I think he was really hurt about it,” Davis said. “It's not that he was hiding it. He just was who he was. It was just how [he] walked around living his life.”
By 1980, Burke was out of the game entirely. In 1982, he explained the reason for his premature retirement in an Inside Sports cover story. Its title: “The Double Life of a Gay Dodger.”
“I never really blamed nobody, but I think it was [bad] . . . [the way they] took my game away from me,” Burke told the Los Angeles Times in 1994.
“I worked hard to make it, and all of a sudden, I was blackballed. It’s their ignorance. Don’t take my life away from me because of what you think I do in the bed. Common sense will tell you, ‘Ain’t none of your business’ . . . but I was prepared for that day. It was either get married and play along with the game, or be yourself.”
*****
His name still rang loudly along the Castro district’s thoroughfares. To locals, he was still the same man that soared above defenders on Berkeley concrete, the same man who reached the big leagues and lived to tell the tale. He still had his charm. He still had his good looks.
And Burke still had his athleticism. He flashed his talent in recreation leagues across the city. In 1982, he led The Pendulum—San Francisco’s sole Black gay bar—to a North American Amateur Athletic Gay Association World Series title. Burke also earned gold at that year’s inaugural Gay Games, held in San Francisco.
He had his struggles, to be sure. Burke could be an unreliable friend at times. He was also gripped by periods of addiction and homelessness.
“I think he tried to handle it as best as he could,” Davis said. “But I don't think he was quite the same. A bit of the light was gone.”
In 1987, Burke’s leg was shattered after being hit by a car while crossing the street. The wreck effectively ended his sporting career. He received a settlement for the collision. But the money quickly vanished.
Around that same time, Burke’s friends started dying in droves, cut down by a mysterious illness that had come to ravage San Francisco–and gay neighborhoods across the country.
That same malady, AIDS, would come to afflict Burke in the early 1990s.
His final years were spent in Davis’ apartment, writhing in pain atop a twin bed covered in children’s bed sheets. The smell of gumbo and pigs feet swirled in the air—Burke’s childhood favorites. He received myriad visitors: grade school companions, ex-teammates, dance partners and more.
There were letters, too. During his playing days, Burke served as a sort of liaison between his team and local communities. Twenty years later, those children—and their parents—expressed gratitude for his gesture.
“They talked about how great that he made them feel even if they [weren’t] a good player,” Davis said. “He really couldn't believe [it].”
Burke died on May 30, 1995. He was 42 years old.
*****
Baker remembers trying to manage San Francisco’s games after seeing Burke. The image of his emaciated friend lingered as he attempted to bark out instructions.
So, he thrust himself into AIDS relief. Baker donated money to research efforts and paid for meals for those dealing with the illness. He sent Burke money to try to ease his financial anxiety. And most of all, he mourned what had happened to his friend.
Thirty years on from Burke’s death, June has since been nationally recognized as Pride month. It’s a pittance for those who fought for gay liberation. But it offers an opportunity for masses of Americans to embrace unheralded figures like Burke—one of baseball’s most important showmen, remembered by those who knew him and honored by those he never met.
Baseball has slowly followed suit. In 2021, the A’s renamed their annual Pride Night in Burke’s honor. Proceeds from the event now go to the Glenn Burke Wellness Clinic, a medical facility launched by the Oakland LGBTQ Community Center in 2020.
The Dodgers, meanwhile, honored Burke in a Pride Night ceremony in 2022.
Burke’s memory still billows across the Golden State. He’s hand-jiving on parquet floors draped in moonlight in the Castro district. He’s plucking unruly liners out the sky at Dodger Stadium.
“Glenn changed me,” Baker said. “He made me more open-minded. He made me more tolerant. He made me more generous with my time and my money. That was all because of Glenn.”
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