Letโs 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.
Itโs not a fleeting mention on Pride night, itโs a permanent record. A static reminder of progress made โ 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)
โItโll be here tomorrow, itโll be here on the weekend and if you come next month, itโll be here,โ said the Dodgersโ team historian Mark Langill, who pointed to a spot just down the hall where in 1976 he was an 11-year-old getting Burkeโs autograph.
Baseball is steeped in such history. The personal, the statistical, the societal. And the Dodgersโ is incomplete without their stories โ Burkeโs and Beanโs.
But the Dodgers have not, of course, always gotten this stuff right.
In 1978, they did Burke wrong, trading him โ he believed โ 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 โ 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)
Thereโs 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 โDodger Dugoutโ 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.
โWhen called upon, he could play really well,โ 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 teamโs 13th annual LGBTQ+ Pride Night. โAnd when we needed a moment of levity, Glenn was not afraid to come forward and put a smile on peopleโs face.โ
But shortly before he died of AIDS in 1995 at 42, Burke published an autobiography, โOut at Home,โ in which he described the teamโs management being โafraid 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.โ
โOh, what he had to deal with and keep it hid,โ said Joyce Burke-Henderson, one of Glennโs sisters at Fridayโs pregame unveiling, where family members of both players gasped and cried and cheered the installationโs reveal.
โBut as time went on, people did know. And then I think he came to the point where he just didnโt care and he just told it like it was.โ
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, โThe Double Life of a Gay Dodger.โ
โWe just appreciate that now people are opening their eyes and just trusting in the Lord,โ Burke-Henderson said Friday, โthat things will go forward and work out and everybody will be loved regardless of their situation.โ
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 โ who was MLBโs 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 valedictorian at Santa Ana High, played for Loyola Marymount and went on to appear in 272 big-league games โ including 51 for the Dodgers in 1989 โ before abruptly walking away from baseball in 1995.
It got to be too much, heโd explain later, continuing to hustle to keep his baseball career afloat while keeping his sexuality secret, acutely aware of the blowback heโd get if it got out.
โFor nine years,โ he told the New York Times, โI felt as though I had one foot in the major leagues and one on a banana peel.โ
โWhen he left baseball suddenly, I knew something was wrong,โ Beanโs mother, Linda Kovac, said Friday, pausing to wipe away tears. โHe was playing very well, it wasnโt like he was kicked out or anything. And it just didnโt make any sense.โ
When Bean finally told his family he was gay, in 1996 โ three years before clueing in an unsuspecting public via a Miami Herald article โ none of his loved ones blinked. That included his stepfather, Ed Kovac, the homicide cop and former Marine whoโd had a partner on the force who was gay.
โHe worked with someone that he respected, side by side, on criminal cases,โ Linda said. โWeโre still friends with that guy.โ
Linda and Ed Kovac, parents of Billy Bean, hold hands in front of a tribute dedicated to their son at Dodger Stadium on Friday.
(Ronaldo Bolanos/Los Angeles Times)
Knowing someone โ or of someone โ who is gay or lesbian has long tended to dispel falsehoods and quell fears that might exist.
โOne of the most important things any one of us can do in our community is be out, to be proud,โ said Greg Baker, Beanโs husband. โThe fact that someone can be out in a world that typically doesnโt have a lot of role models of the same ilk, itโs a brave thing to stick your neck out. Itโs also very important.โ
And itโs not a surprise, Baker said, that more athletes arenโt out in sports like baseball. Not with Gallup polling released last week telling us that with public acceptance of same-sex marriage and relationships in the U.S. has flattened after two-plus decades of growing support โ down from 71% to about 65%.
โI want to thank the Dodgers organization,โ Baker said. โItโs brave of them in this day and age to spotlight someone in our community when other organizations are trying to erase us.โ
The Dodgers have done the opposite, putting up a permanent marker. A long time coming, a tribute to last.
