When baseballer Dusty Baker hit his 30th home run of the season on October 2, 1977, his Los Angeles Dodgers teammate Glenn Burke raised his hand in celebration.
As Baker crossed the plate, he also put up his hand and slapped Burke’s.
As strange as it sounds, this was the first recorded high-five, possibly the first one in existence.
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“His hand was up in the air, and he was arching way back,” Baker said.
“So I reached up and hit his hand. It seemed like the thing to do.”
It was a more enthusiastic variation of the “low-five”, a similar but slower move that began in the African-American community in the 1920s.
It even features in the first “talkie”, 1927’s The Jazz Singer.
For decades, when someone said “Give me five”, the hands remained at about waist level.
After Burke and Baker’s gesture, the high-five rapidly became an international sensation.
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By 1980, it was included in the Oxford English Dictionary.
This came in spite of the vast majority of people not recognising the origin.
Despite Burke’s talents, he only played professional baseball for three years before he retired at the age of 27.
Though it wasn’t publicly known, the team was well aware he was gay.
Uncomfortable with Burke’s sexuality, Dodgers management pressured him to marry a woman.
When he refused, he was transferred to the Oakland Athletics.
There he was spurned by his teammates and given little playing time.
He retired from baseball and moved to the Castro neighbourhood in San Francisco, where he greeted wellwishers and supporters in the gay community with the high-five.
He went on to dominate at the Gay Softball World Series.
“I was making money playing ball and not having any fun,” he said at the time.
“Now I’m not making money, but I’m having fun.”
He came out to the wider world in 1982.
Baker, meanwhile, went on to a longer career as a player, coach and manager.
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