The high five.
Was invented.
In 1977.
Now look, I’ve been in the weird facts game for a long time now, but few tidbits have
ever jarred me quite like finding out that arguably the world’s most iconic hand gesture
is younger than the world’s most iconic Hamm jester, which is what I call Jon Hamm.
The handshake, for comparison, is believed by anthropologists to have been invented in
prehistoric times, before the written word even existed.
The high five was invented the same year Jimmy Buffett released Margaritaville.
While the low-five, also called slapping skin, was around in African-American culture since
the 1920s, it wasn’t until the Carter administration that someone finally cracked the code and
took it up high.
There are actually a few different origin stories, but let’s start with the most widely
known.
The day was October 2, 1977.
The location was Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles.
The men were Dusty Baker and Glenn Burke.
The number one song in America was The Star Wars Theme/Cantina Blend.
That’s 100% true, by the way, but it’s not the point.
The story goes like this: the Dodgers were trying to break the very specific record of
having four players each hit thirty home runs in a season, because if there’s one thing
baseball loves even more than financially exploiting minor leaguers’ childhood dreams,
it’s weirdly specific records.
In the sixth inning, Dusty Baker hit his 30th homer, and as he came around the bases, a
rookie named Glenn Burke excitedly put his hand up in the air, and Baker, unsure of what
he should do, slapped it.
Seemingly, Baker put about as much thought into this landmark moment in hand history
as I put into writing this video, saying simply: “His hand was up in the air, and he was
arching way back, so I reached up and hit his hand.
It seemed like the thing to do."
It turned out, it was, in fact, the thing to do.
The Dodgers soon adopted the high five, even putting out advertisements about the high
five that now read like a Strange Planet cartoon, which detail that the “high five salute”
is “given customarily following a home run or Dodgers victory.”
But while the Dodgers loved the high-five, they didn’t so much love its inventor, Glenn
Burke, mainly because of who he loved.
If you’ve ever been a gay baseball player in the 1970s, you’ll know that it was a
difficult time to be a gay baseball player.
I could go into more depth, but I’m pretty sure I don’t have to explain homophobia;
if you want more information, you can read Clarence Thomas’ dissent in Dobbs, or watch
any mainstream comedy made in the early 2000s.
Things are much better now, of course, which is why since Burke’s coming out, there have
been literally ones of openly gay professional baseball players.
Burke was pushed out of the league after only four years, though he went on to compete in
the 1982 Gay Olympics and become a star in the San Francisco Gay Softball League, even
making the high-five into a symbol of gay pride in the Castro District.
The Burke-Baker story is the most widely-accepted high-five origin story, and likely the one
with the best claim.
But much like calculus, lightning rods, and this thumbnail, the high five has multiple
claimed inventors.
The most plausible other origin comes from the 1978-1979 University of Louisville basketball
team, known as the Doctors of Dunk, because they were famous for playing above the rim—not
to be confused with the Doctor of Dunk, which is what I call the man who draws my blood
behind a Dunkin Donuts.
One day in practice, forward Wiley Brown went to give his teammate Derek Smith a classic
low five.
But that day, Smith stopped him, stared Brown directly in the eyes, and said, “No, up
high,” likely the coolest thing anyone had ever said until the time Joe Biden said “There
are at least three genders.
Don’t play games with me, kid.”
Brown said he understood “up high” to be in commemoration of how their team played
basketball up high, and accordingly, reached up and gave Smith what they claim to be the
first high-five.
And there’s evidence to back them up: in fact, you can see the high five in archival
footage of the Cardinals’ 78-79 season.
There are also a number of assorted other origins.
Some high-five historians claim it began back in the 1960s on the women’s volleyball circuit,
though there’s not much documentation.
Magic Johnson claims he invented the high five when he played basketball at Michigan
State.
But then again, Magic Johnson also claimed the Atlanta Hawks could make the Finals in
2015, which I’m now realizing is a reference none of you will understand, but… trust
me, it was dumb.
There’s even one widely-publicized version claiming a basketball player named Lamont
Sleets invented the high-five in high school, which turned out to be an elaborate hoax by
two comedy writers who randomly picked the Lamont Sleets name out of a record book.
Now, I know that people are going to comment on this video that surely two people slapped
palms above their heads before 1977.
And that’s true.
A high five can be seen, for example, here in the 1960 French New Wave movie Breathless,
when two characters say goodbye after making a plan.
But the high five isn’t just a physical action; a high five is also an idea, inherently
tied to the meaning it conveys: celebration.
And it wasn’t until the late 70s and early 80s that the act of slapping palms above your
head was, first off, called a high five, but more importantly, was understood to have that
celebratory meaning.
And if you don’t understand that, I’d invite you to go ahead and give yourself a
good old-fashioned high-five right in the face.
You know what can feel like getting high fived in the face?
Waking up.
Especially when right after you wake up, you start scrolling Twitter and basically get
high fived in the face by an algorithm optimized for maximal outrage-slash-annoyance.
That’s why I’ve begun starting my mornings with Morning Brew, the free daily newsletter
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