Wow, the trailer looks really compelling. Very sad. I remember seeing him on baseball cards and old Dodger programs. Someone says on the interview that he dated Tommy Lasorda's son.

http://www.mediabistro.com/sportsnewser/csnba-to-premiere-documentary-on-first-openly-gay-mlb-player_b3041

KoreAmBear;415616 said:

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Wow, the trailer looks really compelling. Very sad. I remember seeing him on baseball cards and old Dodger programs. Someone says on the interview that he dated Tommy Lasorda's son.

http://www.mediabistro.com/sportsnewser/csnba-to-premiere-documentary-on-first-openly-gay-mlb-player_b3041

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The Chronicle had a two articles yessterday. Burke grew up in Berkeley and went to Berkeley High. The film maker, who also grew up in Berkeley met him playing summer pick up basketball at Harmon Gym:

Quote:

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The first time I saw him was at Harmon, and Glenn was on the side waiting for winners. He took the ball, triple-pumped and slammed it backward - and he wasn't that tall. I was like, "Oh, my God!" I'd never seen anyone do something like that. Then when I started watching him play, he was the best, hands down.

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LINK

The filmmaker, Ted Griggs, also appeared on KNBR this morning. (Podcast link on this page.) It was a pretty interesting interview, which didn't exactly raise my opinion of Billy Martin.

(1) In 1970 there was an all-star basketball game in the Oakland Coliseum between Nor Cal and So Cal recent high school grads. The South could have had Bill Walton play but he didn't and as it turns out he wasn't needed as Keith (before he became Jamaal) Wilkes led a southern rout. Anyway, Glenn Burke played for the North and pretty much gunned the ball up every time he touched it. I don't recall what he scored but he basically never passed to anyone. I was there to watch a former teammate play and was impressed in the warmups by Burke tossing the ball off the top of the backboard and stuffing the ball one-handed on the rebound. In those days you couldn't dunk during the game but you could in warm-ups. Now, he was maybe 5'9" and he was skying.
(2) City league game in El Cerrito in the mid-70's. He was on a team with a couple of other ex-Cal players playing against my team. We lost......badly. He must have still been playing baseball at the time as this was the offseason.

It was a good program. What was intriguing was that the ballplayers seemed discomfited by Burke's sexuality, but perhaps willing to accept it. (Note the distress in the Dodger clubhouse when Burke was traded.) It was the management level of baseball in the 1970s, Lasorda, Billy Martin, Al Campanis, that had the real problem with Burke.

Will be interested to see the program.

Was it noted in the program that Burke just wasn't a good professional baseball player? He had a career OPS of .561, which is horrible.

I'd say he was described as a superlative athlete, perhaps more so in basketball than baseball, who was capable of a high level of performance, particularly in his minor league days, but who was sidetracked by personal issues.

Burke played F at 5-9 on a powerhouse BHS team that had Marvin Buckley, who would later star at UNReno, John Lambert, USC and NBA, Dan Palley, who went to Utah then ended up at Cal but did not play hoops and the later infamous Larry Green, one of the convicted Zebra killers that terrorized SF in the mid-70's. Anyway Burke was a D1 hoop talent despite his height deficiency and could have been a standout in just about any sport he decided to play.

StillABear;415941 said:

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Burke played F at 5-9 on a powerhouse BHS team that had Marvin Buckley, who would later star at UNReno, John Lambert, USC and NBA, Dan Palley, who went to Utah then ended up at Cal but did not play hoops and the later infamous Larry Green, one of the convicted Zebra killers that terrorized SF in the mid-70's. Anyway Burke was a D1 hoop talent despite his height deficiency and could have been a standout in just about any sport he decided to play.

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I remember seeing Burke playing pickup ball in Harmon Gym and was amazed at his leaping ability. He had a broad chest which made him appear taller for some reason. Nobody could stop him and it wasn't against intramural types but local college players who congregated down at Harmon.

Dave75;415926 said:

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I'd say he was described as a superlative athlete, perhaps more so in basketball than baseball, who was capable of a high level of performance, particularly in his minor league days, but who was sidetracked by personal issues.

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Yeah, no doubt he was a great high school basketball player and track star but he just wasn't much of a baseball player, in the majors as I note above, or in the minors. In 1976, in nearly 500 at bats in AAA at Albuquerque--a hitters' paradise--his OBP was .321 and his OPS .745 and he hit only 7 HRs in the rarefied air there. Those are bad numbers, worse than the team average at ABQ. No power and no ability to get on base.

Chronicling a gay man's life in major league baseball certainly is interesting, but Burke didn't make it in the majors because he wasn't good enough, not because of his sexual orientation.

I've seen the show and I understand that you haven't. The argument the writers present is that starting at AA, Burke was distracted by his emerging sexuality and by the company he was keeping.

I'll grant that the statistical record could support that thesis, especially when you remember that Burke didn't focus on baseball until he was 18. It could support a thesis that Burke just wasn't good enough to play Major League ball.

To support their argument, the producers have several players describe Burke as a great talent. One of the players compares him to Pedro Guerrero.

I'm not saying I agree. I don't have enough data to do so. I also don't have enough data to reject their argument.

Burke pulled off a double whammy: 1) coming out as gay to his MLB teammates (the first and only MLB player known to have done so); 2) coming out as a gay black man (a stigma within the black community to this day).

It definitely made him a interesting cat and undoubtedly complicated his personal and professional life. Keep in mind that this was over 30 years ago (with no cable TV, MTV or internet) when attitudes regarding homosexuality where WAY different.

Dave75;416196 said:

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I've seen the show and I understand that you haven't. The argument the writers present is that starting at AA, Burke was distracted by his emerging sexuality and by the company he was keeping.

I'll grant that the statistical record could support that thesis, especially when you remember that Burke didn't focus on baseball until he was 18. It could support a thesis that Burke just wasn't good enough to play Major League ball.

To support their argument, the producers have several players describe Burke as a great talent. One of the players compares him to Pedro Guerrero.

I'm not saying I agree. I don't have enough data to do so. I also don't have enough data to reject their argument.

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I agree with your assessment, Dave. Burke also stole 63 bases in that AAA year in 1976, so I don't think hitting homers was a top priority. He might have been the precursor to Rickey. :p

And regardless of whether he was truly a big league talent, he certainly was good enough to play on those A's teams of the late 70s rather than their minor league teams.

I went to Berkeley High with him. His jumping ability was amazing. At 5'10'' he would jump up with the ball near the basket. A defensive player, many inches taller, would jump at the same time. As the defender returned toward the ground, Glenn would seem to defy gravity, look down at the descending defender and lay the ball in.

I played in a lot of pick-up games (basketball) in '80-81 at the Y in SF. He could still jump.

He could also hit a softball farther than anyone else I have ever seen. We used to play with high school friends during and after high school years at a field on Bancroft (behind a wall), just east of the UCPD station (field now gone I believe). The left field fence was about 300' or so from home plate. Glenn hit balls over that fence that hit the building beyond at the 6th floor or so.