Dodgers embrace family of a player they once shunned
LOS ANGELES » The life and times of Glenn Burke are too big to squeeze into one night, but the Los Angeles Dodgers are finally giving it their best shot. In staging their ninth annual LGBTQ+ Pride Night, they will celebrate their former outfielder — and the first major leaguer to have come out as gay — Friday during their series with the New York Mets.
Call it closing the circle 44 years later. Call it righting a wrong after they drove him out of town in 1978.
Call it what you will. Lutha Burke Davis, Burke’s oldest surviving sister and the family matriarch, is pretty sure how her brother would have reacted.
“Glenn probably would have said, ‘Dang, about time!’ ” Davis said with exuberance and an easy chuckle last week. “He’d be grinning from ear to ear. He would be thrilled that he was thought about that much, really.”
In all, more than 40 of Burke’s family members and friends are expected at Dodger Stadium.
Burke played big and lived bigger, his time in Los Angeles brief but his imprint lasting. Teammates adored the outfielder with outrageous athleticism and an outsize personality. They describe him as a player who could beat you on the baseball field and the basketball court.
“People talk about the highfive,” said Dusty Baker, Burke’s partner in what is credited to be the celebratory slap’s invention Oct. 2, 1977. “Glenn started that.
All I did was reciprocate to it.”
Burke was traded by the Dodgers, shunned by the Athletics and, eventually, ostracized from baseball. He was briefly homeless and turned to cocaine and crack. He did a short stint in prison for drug possession. He contracted AIDS and died from its complications at 42 in May 1995.
Mets reliever hurts finger closing door.
LOS ANGELES » Francisco Lindor slammed his finger closing a door and missed the New York Mets’ series opener against the Los Angeles Dodgers on Thursday night.
“The last time I pinched a finger, I was 12 years old,” he said.
The shortstop got hurt a night earlier after the team arrived in Los Angeles ahead of the fourgame series between the National League’s top two teams. He was closing one of two double doors in his hotel room.
Broadcaster uses offensive nickname. DETROIT » Minnesota broadcaster Jim Kaat referred to Yankees left-hander Nestor Cortes as “Nestor the Molestor” during a broadcast, the second offensive remark in the past year by the 83-year-old Hall of Fame pitcher while calling a game.
Canó cut. MILWAUKEE » Robinson Canó’s short stint with the San Diego Padres is over.less than a month after signing him, the Padres parted ways with the veteran slugger, who elected to become a free agent when he declined an assignment to Triple-a El Paso.