BHS Alum Glenn Burke’s Documentary is Out

On November 10, the Castro Theatre of San Francisco was host of the premiere and fundraiser for the documentary Out: The Glenn Burke Story. Glenn Burke was a Berkeley High Alumnus, class of 1970. At BHS, Burke led the men’s basketball team to an undefeated season his senior year and was named Northern California’s High School Player of the Year. With an accomplished basketball career, it was expected he would be drafted into the NBA, however, Burke took his first professional contract offer, which was to play baseball for the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Burke was the first openly gay major league baseball player. Out gives an in-depth look into Burke’s life, his immense talent and the reaction of the sports world when he stopped trying to hide his personal life. The film was mainly composed of interviews of Burke’s friends and former teammates who spoke about Burke’s life and the hostile relationship between professional sports and homosexuality. During the film, Abul-Jalil al-Hakim, a childhood friend of Glenn Burke, described it best, saying, “It was uncompromising on both ends. Glenn was comfortable with who he was. Baseball was not comfortable with who he was.” Griggs and his producers got Burke’s former teammates to open up. Former Dodgers players like Dusty Baker, Reggie Smith and Davey Lopes made it clear in the film that they knew exactly who Burke was. Although they were surprised and at times uncomfortable with his behavior, they still accepted him.

Burke made little secret of his sexuality during his time with the Dodgers. “Al Campanis and Walter O’Malley had called him into the office and offered him $75,000 dollars to get married. And Glenn, being his comic self, said, ‘I guess you mean to a woman?’” Not only did Burke not marry a woman, he began to openly date Tommy Lasorda’s son. Burke was subsequently traded to the Oakland A’s. Even though he was back in his hometown, his manager introduced him to his teammates as “the faggot.” Burke retired from professional baseball before he came out to Inside Sports magazine in 1982, making him a hero in the gay community.

Not long after he came out of the closet, Burke turned to drug use and became homeless. Glenn Burke died of complications from his strain of the HIV virus in 1995 at the age of 42.

Out: The Glenn Burke Story is a compelling and tragic story that should be viewed by anyone entering or active in the world of professional sports. Despite the advances made in promoting diversity in sports, a homosexual baseball player was shunned from playing the game he loved because of his sexual orientation.

Glenn Burke decided to live an openly gay lifestyle in the major leagues. It has been 31 years since Burke retired and not one active professional baseball player has claimed to be gay since. There have been thousands of new athletes since Glenn Burke and it seems impossible that not one of them has been gay. But because of cases like Burke’s, professional athletes are too afraid to be open with their sexuality.