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"The Forgotten Story" of Openly Gay MLB Player Glenn Burke

The Atlantic revisits the "forgotten story of Glenn Burke", the former centerfielder for the Los Angeles Dodgers and Oakland A's who was the first and only Major League Baseball player known to have been out to his teammates and team owners during his professional career. 

"He tried to change sports culture three decades ago—but back then, unlike now, sports culture wasn't ready for a change," writes Allen Barrra.

Burke made no secret of his sexual orientation to the Dodgers front office, his teammates, or friends in either league. He also talked freely with sportswriters, though all of them ended up shaking their heads and telling him they couldn't write that in their papers. Burke was so open about his sexuality that the Dodgers tried to talk him into participating in a sham marriage. He refused. In a bit of irony that would seem farcical if it wasn't so tragic, one of the Dodgers who tried to talk Burke into getting "married," was his manager, Tommy Lasorda, whose son Tom Jr. died from AIDS complications in 1991. To this day, Lasorda Sr. refuses to acknowledge his son's homosexuality.

And:

Burke came out to the world outside baseball in a 1982 article for Inside Sports and even followed it up shortly after with an appearance on The Today Show with Bryant Gumbel.

But his story was greeted by the rest of the news media and the baseball establishment, including Burke's former teammates and baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn, with silence. Even his superb autobiography, Out at Home, which published the year he died, failed to stir open conversation about homosexuality in sports. Practically no one in the sports-writing community would acknowledge that Burke was gay.

Burke told People magazine in 1995, "They can't ever say now that a gay man can't play in the majors, because I'm a gay man and I made it."

Burke's story was tragic. After reaching the pinnacle of baseball and playing the World Series, Burke began abusing drugs, became homeless and eventually died from AIDS-related causes in 1995. He was only 43 years old. Burke is the subject of the recent documentary Out: The Glenn Burke Story.

Former Dodgers teammate Reggie Smith learned about Burke's sexuality  through another player. Smith stresses that he did not want the information to become public or it would "destroy Burke's career." Watch that clip and the trailer AFTER THE JUMP ...

SPORNO: José Reyes Swings His Big Bat for ESPN's "Body Issue"

NY Mets shortstop slash Dominican sporno-rific baseball fantasy José Reyes swings his big ole bat for ESPN The Magazine's "Body Issue." The cover plus one more scan AFTER THE JUMP ...

Los Angeles Dodgers Release "It Gets Better" Video

Very nice. The Los Angeles Dodgers becomes the latest MLB franchise to reach out to bullied LGBT teens with a video for "It Gets Better".

The Dodgers' contribution features several Dodger players and coaches including Don Mattingly, James Loney (above), Matt Guerrier, Jamey Carroll, A.J. Ellis, Rod Barajas and Hiroki Kuroda. "The Dodgers have been outspoken advocates for equality and against all societal prejudices dating back to the days of Jackie Robinson," said Dodgers Senior Vice President, Public Affairs Howard Sunkin. "Our club wholeheartedly supports an end to bullying and violence against LGBT youth. There is zero tolerance for violence of any kind for any reason in our community."

The video includes messaging in English, Spanish and Japanese.

Other MLB franchises participating in the project include the Giants, Mariners, Red Sox and Cubs.

The Dodgers contribution is especially important given the team's history. The Dodgers once employed Glenn Burke, the Black former superstar centerfielder who became the first and only MLB player out to his teammates and team owners during his professional career. Burke was traded from the team and later died from AIDS-related causes in 1995. Burke is the subject of the new documentary Out: The Glenn Burke Story.

Watch the video WHEN YOU JUMP ...

SPORNO: James Ihedigbo, Curtis Granderson Strip for "Essence"

New York Jets defensive back James Ihedigbo is one of four spornorific athletes in the August 2011 ESSENCE. Extra points for the strategically positioned CK tighty whiteys.

Yankees center fielder Curtis Granderson shows his sexy—and his, ahem, baseball bat—AFTER THE JUMP ..

Cubs Become 2nd Pro Sports Team to Create an "It Gets Better" Video

Go Cubbies! The Chicago Cubs will produce an "It Gets Better" video to support LGBT youth and stand against homophobia and anti-gay bullying, the club announced.

The project has been in the works for more than a week and is set to be filmed after the team returns to Wrigley Field from its current 10-game road trip. "The Cubs applaud the Giants for their stand against anti-LGBT bullying. Bullying of anyone for any reason is unacceptable," said Laura Ricketts, Cubs owner and board member. "We are proud to join the Giants in taking a stand against bullying and encourage other professional sports organizations to do the same."

The San Francisco Giants were the first pro sports team to jopin the campaign. The club announced their video in May and released it this week.

In October 2009, the Cubs become the first major league sports franchise with a lesbian owner  when Laura Ricketts and her family bought the team and Wrigley Field.

PHOTO: Pitcher Carlos Mormal via GETTY

Giants Become 1st Pro Sports Team to Create "It Gets Better" Video

The San Francisco Giants will become the first professional sports franchise to create an "It Gets Better" video to encourage LGBT youth. This after more than 6500 people signed an online petition created by gay activist and videographer Sean Chapin, report the SF Weekly and San Francisco Chronicle.

Giants' spokeswoman Staci Slaughter said today that the team already had been thinking of joining the campaign before Chapin started his petition drive, but his efforts speeded things up. She said the exact content of the video, and which if any players or members of the coaching staff will participate, has not been determined.

Originally, the plan was to produce the video for the Giants LGBT Night home game in August, Slaughter said, "but now we're trying to get it done sooner than later."

The Giants have a strong gay and lesbian fan base and as an organization has a history of promoting tolerance, she said. In 1994, the Giants became the first team in the majors to dedicate a game every year to AIDS awareness.

Chapin describes the Giants' decision as a "game-changing stand."

PHOTO: Infielder Pablo Sandoval via GETTY

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SWERV, the new Black LGBT publication from publisher Michael-Christopher, features the "Stars of the Black Gay 'Net": B. Scott, Pam Spaulding and Rod 2.0.  L. Michael Gipson on B. Scott and R20, Lisa Joyner chats up Pam. More later ...

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Newly-elected Warsaw City Council member Krystian Legierski: "Being gay in the U.S.A. is [easier] than in Poland—not because of law but because of the population's mentality. I know personally maybe 10 Black people in Poland."

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Modelizer: Well-fitted briefs.

Hawaii Gov. Neil Abercrombie vows to end birther controversy.

Segregation revisionist Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour using state planes for personal use?

 Nathan H. Williams in Chicago Tribune on his casting in Girls Who Like Boys Who Like Boys. "A lot of the images of African-American gay men on television are one-sided and stereotypical ... [I]t was time for America to see that we don't come in just one shape and one size. It was time to show a different face about what it means to be a black gay man."

WATCH: Documentary Premieres on Openly Gay MLB Player Glenn Burke

Two weeks ago, R20 previewed Out. The Glenn Burke Story, a new documentary that chronicles the life of Glenn Burke, the Black former superstar centerfielder for the Los Angeles Dodgers who was the first and only Major League Baseball player known to have been out to his teammates and team owners during his professional career. The documentary premieres tonight.

The San Francisco Chronicle has an early review:

The tale soon turns tumultuous - and reaches a sad, premature ending. Burke made little secret of his sexuality during his time with the Dodgers and A's in the late 1970s. Several former teammates contend this bothered management of both clubs, to the point where the Dodgers traded Burke to Oakland and then-A's manager Billy Martin later ridiculed him in front of his teammates. He abruptly retired from baseball in 1980, publicly revealed his homosexuality two years later and landed in San Francisco's Castro district, where he initially was welcomed warmly. But his life there eventually spun out of control, sending him spiraling toward drug use, prison time and AIDS. He died of complications from the disease in May 1995, at age 42.

Filmmaker Doug Harris co-produced the documentary and talked to The Chronicle about Burke.

"To me, the heaviest part of the film didn't even deal with baseball. It was probably the part where Glenn is here in San Francisco, and he's in a car accident. He was an icon in the gay community, and once he has this car accident - and he can't run, jump and dunk a basketball anymore - then he's not an icon anymore. ... Once he got hit by that car and he couldn't perform, they kind of shoved him to the side. To me, that spiraled into his heavy drug use and his crash and burn. So that's the part that really grabbed my heart. People have to realize the gay community turned on him just as much as baseball did, if you really look at it."

Out. The Glenn Burke Story premieres tonight at 8PM on Comcast SportsNet Bay Area. Also tonight, the documentary will screen at 7:30 p.m. as part of a fundraiser at the Castro Theatre in San Francisco. At 9:15 p.m., a live town-hall meeting at the Castro will be telecast on CSNBA.

Watch the trailer WHEN YOU JUMP...

WATCH: New Documentary on Openly Gay MLB Player Glenn Burke

A new documentary will soon air that chronicles the life of Glenn Burke, the Black former superstar centerfielder for the Los Angeles Dodgers who was the first and only Major League Baseball player known to have been out to his teammates and team owners during his professional career. Burke died from AIDS-related causes in 1995. He was only 43 years old.

Out. The Glenn Burke Story will premiere at a public screening at the Castro Theater on Wednesday, November 10. The film will be replayed exclusively on Comcast SportsNet Bay Area. The documentary will tell the story of Burke's rapid "descent from the World Series to being traded to the Athletics to a voluntary retirement and down into the abyss of drug abuse, homelessness, and AIDS that eventually took his life," notes Bleacher Report.

Featuring interviews with Dodger teammates Dusty Baker, Davey Lopes and Rick Monday, among others, as well as A's teammates Claudell Washington, Mike Norris, and Shooty Babitt, Out gets into the nitty-gritty of Burke's athletic and post-athletic career. According to almost everyone interviewed, Burke was run out of baseball because he was gay. The Dodgers apparently offered to pay for his wedding and honeymoon if he got married, and when he refused, he was promptly traded to the Athletics. The situation was no better there with manager Billy Martin, and Burke took a leave of absence from the team to clear his head.

When he decided to come back, it was starkly clear to him that, while he still loved baseball and obviously had the physical tools to play the game, there was no place for a gay man in professional baseball. Burke then took the celebrity that he did have and played it up, spending a majority of his time in San Francisco's famed Castro District. Yet his fame ran out, and his party lifestyle turned into one of drug abuse. The tragedy was compounded when Burke contracted AIDS in 1994. But in the last years of his life, the same game of baseball that abandoned him came back to support him in his greatest time of need.

Glenn Burke is still regarded as the first and only player in the big four (NFL, MLB, NHL, NBA) to come out as gay to his teammates while he was still playing.

The A's Billy Martin called Burke faggot in front of his teammates. "By 1978 I think everybody knew," Glenn Burke later said, adding that he was "sure his teammates didn't care." Management at the Dodgers and A's detested Burke's sexuality, but, according to most reports and the interviews in Out. The Glenn Burke Story, the teammates did not care. Fascinating ... especially because we're talking professional sports in the late 1970s

Former Dodgers teammate Reggie Smith learned about Burke's sexuality (and off-the-field antics) through another player. Here's a clip when he discusses it and stresses that he did not want the information to become public or it would "destroy his career", WATCH AFTER THE JUMP ...

Prosecutor: Anti Gay Thugs Beat Man "Over and Over" with Bat

Opening arguments were called and the first witness questioned today in the trial of two men accused in the December 2008 beating death of an Ecuadorean immigrant mistakenly believed to be gay,  Keith Phoenix (l) and Hakim Scott are accused of beating 31-year-old Jose Sucuzhañay with an aluminum baseball bat and returning to finish the job, reports the New York Post.

Keith Phoenix beat José Sucuzhany "over and over again with the bat held high above his head," because he thought he was gay, prosecutor Joshua Hanshaft said in court today. "Jose tried to get up... and (Phoenix) came back with the bat and beat him two to three times on the head, cracking his skull wide open. The victim was walking and huddling with his brother along a Bushwick street to shield himself from the cold when thugs mistook them for a gay couple, prosecutors said. Hanshaft said Scott "took a glass bottle and smashed it with all his might" over Sucuzhany’s head, knocking him down. While Phoenix took over the attack with the bat, Scott chased Sucuzhany’s brother, Romel, with the broken bottle , preventing him from helping Sucuzhany, a 31-year-old father of two.

A taxi driver witnessed the brutal scene, reports the NY Times.

Davi Almonte said he was waiting for a traffic light to change when he saw two Hispanic men walking and hugging each other. The next minute, he said, two other men who had pulled up in a sports utility vehicle attacked one of the Hispanic men, first with a bottle, then with their feet and finally with a bat. The bat was swung seven or eight times, and even with his windows rolled up, Mr. Almonte said, he “could hear the impacts” and finally had to stop watching. “I didn’t want to see his head bleeding or explode,” he explained.

Only minutes after the beating, Phoenix was caught laughing on a traffic camera.

Phoenix and Scott face charges of second-degree murder as a hate crime, manslaughter, assault and attempted assault.  Both have pled not guilty and will be tried in the same courtroom by two different juries. They face life sentences if convicted.

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