Little pride in baseball's treatment of first openly gay player

The scene is Scottsdale, Ariz., the spring training home of Leo Durocher's Cubs.

Sporting long, bushy sideburns and patrolling first base, the Cubs' Joe Pepitone alternately spits a gob of chewing tobacco and, with his Brooklyn accent, good-naturedly heckles a nearby umpire.

At one point, he refers to the ump as "sissy (gay slur) umpire."

The episode belongs to a 1974 National Film Board of Canada documentary, "King of the Hill."

The narrator glosses over the casual insult, telling us only, "First base is baseball's most sociable position."

Viewed through a modern lens, this vignette provides a glimpse into the implicit and often explicit homophobia of baseball in the 1970s.

Like sports in general, baseball reflects societal attitudes, and the three-letter gay slur was a familiar one in the Chicago neighborhoods where I grew up, and in the suburbs where my family moved when I started high school.

It was considered the worst thing a boy could call another and functioned as a sort of social weeding out mechanism. You fought back or were teased, bullied or ostracized.

Baseball is essentially a kid's game, and the grown-up little boys playing the game in the 1970s retained the homophobia of their playground days.

During that time, only major league player Glenn Burke had the courage to live openly as a gay man, although he didn't officially come out until he was two years out of baseball after making a futile attempt to separate his personal and professional life.

In the end he was forced out for staying true to his self, thus denying baseball and its fans the full benefit of his considerable athletic gifts.

Great things were predicted as the Oakland native rose through the Los Angeles Dodgers minor league system.

In Burke's biography, "Singled Out: The True Story of Glenn Burke," Andrew Maraniss quotes Dodgers coach Jim Gilliam saying, "Once we get him cooled down a little bit, we think he's going to be another Willie Mays."

The Dodgers brought him up briefly in 1976, but he made his most significant contribution in 1977 when he filled in for an injured Rick Monday in center field.

Burke endeared himself to his teammates by loosening up the clubhouse. He blasted disco tunes from a boom box, freestyled rhymes, and mocked teammates and even manager Tommy Lasorda.

Most significantly, he made a lasting impression not only on baseball, but also sports, when he invented the high-five.

In the final game of the season, Burke greeted teammate Dusty Baker with his raised right hand after the slugger clubbed his 30th homer against Houston, becoming the fourth Dodger to hit 30 homers that season, setting a major league record. Baker responded by slapping Burke's lifted hand.

Although Burke tried to keep his lifestyle and his profession apart, the truth gradually seeped out.

In a 1982 interview, he said, "Teammates would try to make sure I had a good time. Guys would want to fix me up with girls and they began wondering why I wasn't attracted. I didn't want to mislead women."

Players learned to adapt as they learned the truth. When a player told Davey Lopes he thought Burke was gay, Lopes replied, "You know what? If he is, I don't give a ..."

Still, Maraniss writes, as the rumors spread, "Guys started wearing towels around the clubhouse more frequently and made offensive jokes out of earshot."

Burke started two games in the 1977 National League Championship Series against the Phillies, then started in Game 1 of the World Series against the New York Yankees.

But it wasn't enough to perform on the field. He also had to conform off the field.

In 1978, Burke refused general manager Al Campanis' offer of a $75,000 bonus if he would get married.

He was soon traded to Oakland for veteran Bill North, with Campanis telling the press, "We're playing for today. Burke has potential, but it's in the future."

Burke's stint with the A's proved disastrous and he left the team in the middle of the 1979 season.

He attempted a comeback with the A's in 1980, but new manager Billy Martin stated he wouldn't allow Burke to "contaminate" the team. Burke ended his career that year with the team's AAA team in Ogden, Utah.

When Burke came out publicly two years later, he did not receive offers to return to baseball. He died of AIDS-related complications at age 42 in 1995.

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Baseball's attitudes toward the LGBTQ community are slowly evolving.

In July 2014, Commissioner Bud Selig announced that a former major league player who came out after he retired, Billy Bean, would be Major League Baseball's first ambassador for inclusion.

At the news conference, Selig was joined by Burke's sister Lutha. Selig told her, "Your brother was a pioneer. We remember him to this day, and we want to tell his story."

On June 11, in Oakland, where Burke was run out of baseball in his own hometown, the A's held the first Glenn Burke Pride Night, with parts of the ticket proceeds donated to the Glenn Burke Wellness Clinic at the Oakland LGBTQ Center.

Today, Glenn Burke has a plaque on the Rainbow Honor Walk honoring deceased LGBTQ luminaries in San Francisco.

Perhaps someday a gay ballplayer will have a plaque in Cooperstown.