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<\/p>\nLOS ANGELES \u2014 The Los Angeles Dodgers on Friday unveiled a permanent display honoring LGBTQ+ trailblazers and former players for the team Glenn Burke and Billy Bean, who were the first two major leaguers to say they were gay.<\/p>\n
A brief ceremony with their families was held on the team\u2019s 13th Pride Night, hours before the Dodgers hosted the Los Angeles Angels in the Freeway Series.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s brave of them in this day and age to spotlight someone in our community when other organizations are trying to erase us,\u201d said Greg Baker, Bean\u2019s husband.<\/p>\n
The families let out audible \u201caahs\u201d and applauded as a blue curtain dropped on the display under the left-field pavilion near the Dodgers bullpen. Against a swirling rainbow painted on the wall are Burke’s No. 3 and Bean’s No. 40 framed jerseys, along with a color photo of Burke’s baseball card and a black-and-white shot of him in action. Bean’s side of the display features two color photos of him. Placards describe their careers and contributions.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe would be smiling, he would be so happy, he probably would be giving a high-five,\u201d said Joyce Burke Henderson of Vallejo, California, one of Burke’s three sisters on hand.<\/p>\n
Burke was the first MLB player to come out as gay, announcing it in 1982 after he retired. He played for the Dodgers and Oakland Athletics from 1976 to ’79. He and Dodgers teammate Dusty Baker are widely credited with inventing the high-five after they slapped hands on the field in 1977.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
A tribute to LGBTQ+ trailblazers and former Los Angeles Dodgers players Billy Bean and Glenn Burke, who were among the first professional athletes to identify as gay, is viewed following an unveiling Friday, June 5, 2026, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo\/Mark J. Terrill)<\/p>\n
Burke Henderson recalled that her brother initially kept his sexuality hidden before reaching a point where \u201che just didn’t care.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNowadays the world is different and we need to conform to what\u2019s going on,\u201d she said. \u201cAs long as everybody is safe, they\u2019re healthy, we don\u2019t have the right to tell people how to live their lives. That\u2019s up to them, but just respect that decision.\u201d<\/p>\n
Burke died at age 42 in 1995 of AIDS complications.<\/p>\n
Four years later, Bean became the second MLB player to reveal that he was gay. Bean did so after he had been retired for four years. Bean was appointed MLB’s first ambassador for inclusion in 2014 and later became the league’s senior vice president for diversity, equity and inclusion.<\/p>\n
Bean was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia in 2023 and died the following year at age 60.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt never stops being emotional,\u201d said Baker, who got choked up addressing the gathering. \u201cIt’s so well-deserved. I’m so proud of him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Baker has remained close to Bean’s family, including his parents Ed and Linda Kovac and three brothers who attended.<\/p>\n
Baker said he’s not surprised that more professional athletes haven’t come out.<\/p>\n
“I still think there\u2019s a lot of work to do and I think that work is not necessarily like within the sports community. I think it\u2019s within our community as a whole,\u201d he said. \u201cThere’s always going to be homophobia, just hopefully there\u2019s going to be less and less of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The families took turns posing in front of the wall and taking their own photos of it.<\/p>\n
“We still love him,\u201d Burke Henderson said. \u201cWe just appreciate the Dodgers honoring him and Billy Bean, too. We knew Billy Bean. They were both great guys.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LOS ANGELES \u2014 The Los Angeles Dodgers on Friday unveiled a permanent display honoring LGBTQ+ trailblazers and former…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":718265,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[112843,1014,6643,49,3335,48,511,266,4852,462,117331,82,39],"class_list":["post-718264","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-app-professional-sports","tag-app-sports","tag-associated-press","tag-ca","tag-california","tag-canada","tag-dodgers","tag-hawaii","tag-human-interest","tag-mlb","tag-professional-baseball","tag-sports","tag-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/718264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=718264"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/718264\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/718265"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=718264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=718264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=718264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}