Posthumous Recognition: M.L.B. to Recognize Glenn Burke as Baseball’s Gay Pioneer; New York Times, 7/14/14

John Branch, New York Times; Posthumous Recognition: M.L.B. to Recognize Glenn Burke as Baseball’s Gay Pioneer:

"Glenn Burke was 27 when he walked out on Major League Baseball, his promising career as an outfielder undone mostly by the burden of being a semicloseted gay man. It was 1980, and it was more important, Burke later explained, to be himself than to be a professional baseball player.

“It’s harder to be gay in sports than anywhere else, except maybe president,” Burke said in 1982, when he came out publicly in an Inside Sports magazine article. “Baseball is probably the hardest sport of all.”

More than three decades later, and nearly 20 years after Burke’s death, Major League Baseball still has not had an active player publicly disclose that he is gay. There probably are several gay men currently playing, but the sport awaits its Robbie Rogers, its Jason Collins, its Michael Sam.

In the meantime, Major League Baseball is trying to ease the way for those surely to come. As part of a concerted effort to demonstrate an atmosphere of tolerance and inclusion, the league invited Burke’s family to Tuesday’s All-Star Game in Minneapolis — its first official recognition of Burke’s early role in a movement just now gaining traction across the sports landscape.

“He was a pioneer, and should be recognized,” Pat Courtney, a Major League Baseball spokesman, said....

“People are missing out when they decide to let a segment of our society not be what they can truly be,” Lutha Burke said.

But the past couple of years have seen a surge in coming-out stories in sports, as gay athletes recognize a shifting, friendlier environment. Major League Baseball, without an out active player, has decided that it should not idly wait. For more than a year, the league has worked with Athlete Ally, a group with a mission to stamp out homophobia in sports."