Doesn’t matter what uniform this guy wears. There are some people whose integrity is so transparent that you can’t help but admire them. Dusty Baker’s like that.

I just read an article that asserted that the high five was invented when Dusty, as a Dodger, homered off the Astros’ J.R. Richard. But Dusty didn’t exactly invent it–he responded to the raised hand of his teammate and friend, Glenn Burke.

Burke was to be the Dodgers’ next big star. He was compared to Willie Mays.

In 1978, he was traded to the Oakland A’s.

Baker later said that “we knew the reason he was traded was because he was gay. You couldn’t be more blunt than that.”

Burke had come out to his teammates and, in part because Baker was so open to Burke’s announcement—he was a leader even then; he set the tone— the rest of the team accepted Burke for who he was.

That’s the other reason they accepted him: because of who he was. Former Dodger outfielder Rick Monday said that Burke “could take any moment in time and make it fun. There was no better guy in the clubhouse, I’ll tell you that. There was no one who didn’t love having Glenn around.”

Some of his teammates cried when the trade was announced.

Burke’s trade was tied to the fact that manager Tommy Lasorda’s son was gay. Lasorda essentially disowned Tommy Jr., whose circle of friends included Burke.

And A’s manager Billy Martin loathed Glenn Burke, openly called him a “faggot.”

Burke’s career languished and he left baseball. He died of complications from AIDS in 1995.

Tommy Lasorda Jr. had died from the same complications in 1991. His father, one of the most famous Dodger managers, insisted then and for the rest of his life that his son had died of cancer.

So now Dusty Baker is a manager, too. After stints with the Giants, the Cubs, the the Reds and the Nationals, he was hired, at age seventy, by the Astros. He took over a team justifiably ostracized for cheating. The Houston franchise was at its nadir. There was no tougher job in baseball. Now Baker is taking the Astros to the World Series.

“He’s a leader and he’s a friend, so we can go into his office whenever we feel like it and talk about it,” shortstop Carlos Correa [told the New York Times]. “He’s such a wise man and he’s been through it all in baseball.”

“He’s such a wise man.” That resonates. That makes sense.