Black History Month: Glenn Burke and the High Five

I’ve written one other piece involving a high five–a wonderful, funny moment from my life roughly 30 years ago. Would that even have been possible without Glenn Burke and Dusty Baker on October 2, 1977?

Think about it though–you can’t find anyone who has not done a ‘high five’ at some point, but it isn’t something that existed until 46 years ago.

Baker hit a home run that day, game 162, last of the season. It was his 30th–what wound up being a career high for him. Burke and teammates came out of the dugout and after Baker touched home plate, Burke was standing there with his hand over and slightly behind his head and Baker, not sure what to do, reached out and slapped it. It was the highlight of the game for the Dodgers who lost to JR Richard and the Astros 6-3.

Burke got a little press at the time for it–he was a part-time outfielder and didn’t play well. He didn’t play well in any of four major league seasons…which is probably due to the rest of the story.

The thing is, Burke was homosexual. He didn’t hide it and wasn’t really ashamed of who he was. His teammates with the Dodgers liked him, thought he was a great teammate–contributing far beyond what he could do on the field. But that’s not what the people in charge wanted to hear. Guys like Tommy Lasorda and Billy Martin didn’t like him and eventually his career ended when Martin sent ‘that faggot’ to the minors.

Burke and the high-five carried on. He took it to San Francisco and ‘the Castro’–an openly gay neighborhood where he’d high-five people on the streets…they were aware he was a MLB player and that he did not hide his sexuality. This meant that quickly, the high-five became a symbol of gay pride and for standing up for gay rights. It then began its spread outward from the Castro neighborhood until it became what it is today–a ubiquitous act of celebration, recognition, and joy.

Railroaded out of baseball, Burke remained ‘out’, medaling in the first Gay Olympics as a sprinter, playing in gay baseball leagues in the San Francisco area, too. The problem was that the loss of his career and his dream caused a hole and Burke filled it with cocaine like many others. Cocaine took his health, took his money. He wound up spending most of the last years of his life homeless until his sister took him in just before his death at age 43 from AIDS complications.

To this day, Burke remains the only MLB player to come out of the closet while an active player. It’s a rare occurrence in professional sports everywhere.

So the High Five’s aftermath is complicated–by the fact that Burke was gay and because he was black, a combination that was looked down upon then (and for many, now, too). It doesn’t change the significance of what Burke’s action meant for American and world culture…but few ever think about the act’s origin.