HOW THE GAY MAN WAS DRUMMED OUT OF PRO BASEBALL
source: http://tinyurl.com/3mumc3t
(July 18) Major League Baseball outfielder Glenn Burke began his career with Los Angeles Dodgers in 1976 and was expected to become the next Willie Mays. But there was just one problem: Burke was an out and proud gay man in an era when he was expected to stay in his closet.
Now the subject of the critically-hailed documentary film Out: The Glenn Burke Story (following Burke's poignant 1995 memoirs Out at Home: The Glenn Burke Story), Glenn Burke is finally being hailed as the hero he always was (Burke died of AIDS-related causes on May 30, 1995).
“The players had no problem with it," Burke's old friend and Out producer Doug Harris tells Xtra newspaper. "They loved him as a person despite his sexual orientation. He was a part of the team. They were upset, sad, pissed off when he was traded. That was the beginning of the end of his career. And that’s where his downward spiral began.”
Burke played four seasons in Major League Baseball. In 225 games playing for the Los Angeles Dodgers and Oakland A's, Burke had 523 at-bats, batted .237 with two home runs, 38 RBI and 35 stolen bases. When Dodgers general manager Al Campanis offered him $75,000 to get married to a woman, Burke flat out refused. But he was only traded after he refused to end his friendship with Spike Lasorda, the gay son of then-Dodgers skipper Tommy Lasorda.
(Incidentally, to this day, Tommy Lasorda still refuses to acknowledge his son was gay and died of AIDS. It is such a sad story that even I didn't have the heart to ask Lasorda about it when I interviewed him in 2006 when the former pitcher for the Montreal Royals was inducted into the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame.)
http://tinyurl.com/3mumc3t
Now the subject of the critically-hailed documentary film Out: The Glenn Burke Story (following Burke's poignant 1995 memoirs Out at Home: The Glenn Burke Story), Glenn Burke is finally being hailed as the hero he always was (Burke died of AIDS-related causes on May 30, 1995).
“The players had no problem with it," Burke's old friend and Out producer Doug Harris tells Xtra newspaper. "They loved him as a person despite his sexual orientation. He was a part of the team. They were upset, sad, pissed off when he was traded. That was the beginning of the end of his career. And that’s where his downward spiral began.”
Burke played four seasons in Major League Baseball. In 225 games playing for the Los Angeles Dodgers and Oakland A's, Burke had 523 at-bats, batted .237 with two home runs, 38 RBI and 35 stolen bases. When Dodgers general manager Al Campanis offered him $75,000 to get married to a woman, Burke flat out refused. But he was only traded after he refused to end his friendship with Spike Lasorda, the gay son of then-Dodgers skipper Tommy Lasorda.
(Incidentally, to this day, Tommy Lasorda still refuses to acknowledge his son was gay and died of AIDS. It is such a sad story that even I didn't have the heart to ask Lasorda about it when I interviewed him in 2006 when the former pitcher for the Montreal Royals was inducted into the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame.)
http://tinyurl.com/3mumc3t
