Glenn Lawrence Burke era una stella dei Dodgers: nel 1978, primo giocatore di baseball della storia, fece «coming out» dichiarando la propria diversità. La sua carriera si restrinse quasi per incanto: già nel 1979 era un ex. Burke andò avanti da sportivo dilettante e militante, partecipando ai Giochi Gay dell’82 dove vinse l’oro nei 100 e 200 metri. Ma quel tipo di ribalta non era la stessa cosa e, soprattutto, lui non era più lo stesso uomo: nel giro di pochi anni l’ex stella dei Dodgers dilapidò quanto aveva guadagnato in alcol e droga, finì barbone sulle strade di San Francisco, e l’Aids se lo portò via il 30 maggio 1995.

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Glenn Lawrence Burke was a Major League Baseball player for the Los Angeles Dodgers and Oakland Athletics from 1976 to 1979.
Burke was the first and only Major League Baseball player known to have been out to his teammates and team owners during his professional career.[citation needed] He was the first to publicly acknowledge his homosexuality. He died from AIDS-related causes 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.” – Glenn Burke
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Burke said “By 1978 I think everybody knew,” and was “sure his teammates didn’t care.” Former Dodgers team captain Davey Lopes said “No one cared about his lifestyle.” He told the New York Times that “Prejudice drove me out of baseball sooner than I should have. But I wasn’t changing.”, and stated in his autobiography that “prejudice just won out.” Burke left professional sports for good at age 27.
“My mission as a gay ballplayer was to break a stereotype . . . I think it worked.” Glenn Burke in People ~ November 1994

Burke continued his athletic endeavors after retiring from baseball. He competed in the 1986 Gay Games in basketball, and won medals in the 100 and 200 meter sprints in the first Gay Games in 1982. His jersey number at Berkeley High School was retired in his honor.
Burke’s homosexuality became public knowledge in a 1982 article published by “Inside Sports” magazine. Although he remained active in amateur competition, Burke turned to drugs to fill the void in his life when his career ended. An addiction to cocaine destroyed him both physically and financially. In 1987, his leg and foot were crushed when he was hit by a car in San Francisco. After the accident his life went into physical and financial decline. He was arrested and jailed for drugs and for a time was homeless on the streets of San Francisco for a number of years often congregating in the same neighborhood that once embraced him. His final months were spent with his sister in Oakland. He died of AIDS complications at age 42.
When news of his battle with AIDS became public knowledge in 1994, he received the support of his former teammates and the Oakland Athletics organization.[citation needed] In interviews given while he was fighting AIDS, he expressed little in the way of grudges, and only one big regret – that he never had the opportunity to pursue a second professional sports career in basketball.
Glenn Burke’s name was mentioned in the fifth season Crossing Jordan episode “Thin Ice” regarding how a star professional baseball player falsely accused of raping a woman would rather risk being smeared and imprisoned on that charge than to be revealed as a homosexual.[citation needed] Referring to two star athletes in real life who were accused of rape, the character answered why:
Quentin Baker: “Do you know what a locker room’s like? You know what they say about faggots? What they do to ‘em?”
Jordan Cavanaugh: “What do they say about rapists?”
Baker: Mike Tyson got past it; Kobe was accused. He’s still going strong; but Glenn Burke came out; and he was run out of Baseball!!”
In 1999, Major League Baseball player Billy Bean revealed his homosexuality, only the second Major League player to do so. Unlike Glenn Burke who made his homosexuality public while he was still an active player, Bean revealed himself four years after his retirement in 1995, which happened to be the year Burke died.
(Wikipedia)