Swanson: Dodgers show courage by permanently honoring LGBTQ+ pioneers Glenn Burke and Billy Bean

7 min Click here to listen to this article Share via Close extra sharing options Email Facebook X LinkedIn Threads Reddit WhatsApp Copy Link URL Copied! Print 0:00 0:00 1x This is read by an automated voice. Please report any issues or inconsistencies here. Let’s go Dodgers. High fives all around. Because this time, with the newest historical exhibit at Dodger Stadium, the team got it right. Amid all the historical installations and tributes in the open-air museum that is the Centerfield Plaza, and just a few feet from a Fernando Valenzuela mural, a new display honors Glenn Burke and Billy Bean, two former Dodgers outfielders who were the first and second professional baseball players to come out as gay. It’s not a fleeting mention on Pride night, it’s a permanent record. A static reminder of progress made — and still to be made. And a much-deserved thank-you. A wall inside Dodger Stadium honors former Dodgers and LGBTQ+ pioneers Billy Bean and Glenn Burke. (Ronaldo Bolanos/Los Angeles Times) “It’ll be here tomorrow, it’ll be here on the weekend and if you come next month, it’ll be here,” said the Dodgers’ team historian Mark Langill, who pointed to a spot just down the hall where in 1976 he was an 11-year-old getting Burke’s autograph. Baseball is steeped in such history. The personal, the statistical, the societal. And the Dodgers’ is incomplete without their stories — Burke’s and Bean’s. But the Dodgers have not, of course, always gotten this stuff right. In 1978, they did Burke wrong, trading him — he believed — after management learned he was gay. In his three seasons in L.A., Burke had proved himself a capable reserve outfielder who was popular with his teammates. As far as we know, in 1977, he was the first guy to initiate a high five — spontaneously reaching above his head to slap hands with Dusty Baker after the home run that made Baker the fourth Dodger, along with Ron Cey, Steve Garvey and Reggie Smith, to hit at least 30 home runs that season, a MLB first. Glenn Burke, left, goes to give a high-five to teammate Dusty Baker after Baker hit a home run in 1977. It is believed to be the first instance a high five was exchanged. (Los Angeles Times) There’s a fantastic photo of the historic high five included in the tribute to Burke and Bean, which is situated on a hallway wall beneath the left-field bleachers, beside the “Dodger Dugout” augmented reality photo booth. Burke was also the first guy in that Dodgers clubhouse to crack a joke when the team needed it, his former teammate Rick Monday said. “When called upon, he could play really well,” Monday said before the Dodgers took the field against the Angels on Friday, when the Dodgers and many of their rainbow-sporting fans celebrated the team’s 13th annual LGBTQ+ Pride Night. “And when we needed a moment of levity, Glenn was not afraid to come forward and put a smile on people’s face.” But shortly before he died of AIDS in 1995 at 42, Burke published an autobiography, “Out at Home,” in which he described the team’s management being “afraid of my sexual orientation, even though I never flaunted it. To this day, the Dodgers deny trading me because I was gay. But it was painfully obvious.” “Oh, what he had to deal with and keep it hid,” said Joyce Burke-Henderson, one of Glenn’s sisters at Friday’s pregame unveiling, where family members of both players gasped and cried and cheered the installation’s reveal. “But as time went on, people did know. And then I think he came to the point where he just didn’t care and he just told it like it was.” Joyce Henderson, sister of Glenn Burke, speaks about her brother during a ceremony honoring the former Dodger and LGBTQ+ pioneer at Dodger Stadium Friday. (Ronaldo Bolanos/Los Angeles Times) Burke came out in 1982, three years after playing his 225th and final big league game, in an Inside Sports article, “The Double Life of a Gay Dodger.” “We just appreciate that now people are opening their eyes and just trusting in the Lord,” Burke-Henderson said Friday, “that things will go forward and work out and everybody will be loved regardless of their situation.” The Dodgers first honored Burke in 2022, at their ninth Pride Night. The next season, they made a mess of the Pride festivities, inviting and uninviting and then reinviting the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, a group known for its work in support of AIDS patients and whose members dress in drag, as nuns. In 2023, the Dodgers also invited Bean — who was MLB’s senior vice president for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. He appeared in a pregame ceremony on the field while protesters gathered outside the stadium. Bean died the next year, at 60, 11 months after being diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia. Greg Baker, husband of the late Billy Bean, wipes away tears during a tribute honor Bean as a LGBTQ+ pioneer at Dodger Stadium on Friday. (Ronaldo Bolanos/Los Angeles Times) Once a Northeast Santa Ana Little Leaguer, Bean became valedictoria

Swanson: Dodgers show courage by permanently honoring LGBTQ+ pioneers Glenn Burke and Billy Bean

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