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Let’s go Dodgers. High fives all around.

Because this time, with the newest historical exhibit at Dodger Stadium, the team got it right.

Amid all the historical installations and tributes in the open-air museum that is the Centerfield Plaza, and just a few feet from a Fernando Valenzuela mural, a new display honors Glenn Burke and Billy Bean, two former Dodgers outfielders who were the first and second professional baseball players to come out as gay.

It’s not a fleeting mention on Pride night, it’s a permanent record. A static reminder of progress made — and still to be made. And a much-deserved thank-you.

A wall inside Dodger Stadium honors former Dodgers and LGBTQ+ pioneers Billy Bean and Glenn Burke.

(Ronaldo Bolanos/Los Angeles Times)

“It’ll be here tomorrow, it’ll be here on the weekend and if you come next month, it’ll be here,” said the Dodgers’ team historian Mark Langill, who pointed to a spot just down the hall where in 1976 he was an 11-year-old getting Burke’s autograph.

Baseball is steeped in such history. The personal, the statistical, the societal. And the Dodgers’ is incomplete without their stories — Burke’s and Bean’s.

But the Dodgers have not, of course, always gotten this stuff right.

In 1978, they did Burke wrong, trading him — he believed — after management learned he was gay.

In his three seasons in L.A., Burke had proved himself a capable reserve outfielder who was popular with his teammates.

As far as we know, in 1977, he was the first guy to initiate a high five — spontaneously reaching above his head to slap hands with Dusty Baker after the home run that made Baker the fourth Dodger, along with Ron Cey, Steve Garvey and Reggie Smith, to hit at least 30 home runs that season, a MLB first.

Glenn Burke, left, goes to give a high-five to teammate Dusty Baker after Baker hit a home run in 1977. It is believed to be the first instance a high five was exchanged.

(Los Angeles Times)

There’s a fantastic photo of the historic high five included in the tribute to Burke and Bean, which is situated on a hallway wall beneath the left-field bleachers, beside the “Dodger Dugout” augmented reality photo booth.

Burke was also the first guy in that Dodgers clubhouse to crack a joke when the team needed it, his former teammate Rick Monday said.

“When called upon, he could play really well,” Monday said before the Dodgers took the field against the Angels on Friday, when the Dodgers and many of their rainbow-sporting fans celebrated the team’s 13th annual LGBTQ+ Pride Night. “And when we needed a moment of levity, Glenn was not afraid to come forward and put a smile on people’s face.”

But shortly before he died of AIDS in 1995 at 42, Burke published an autobiography, “Out at Home,” in which he described the team’s management being “afraid of my sexual orientation, even though I never flaunted it. To this day, the Dodgers deny trading me because I was gay. But it was painfully obvious.”

“Oh, what he had to deal with and keep it hid,” said Joyce Burke-Henderson, one of Glenn’s sisters at Friday’s pregame unveiling, where family members of both players gasped and cried and cheered the installation’s reveal.

“But as time went on, people did know. And then I think he came to the point where he just didn’t care and he just told it like it was.”

Joyce Henderson, sister of Glenn Burke, speaks about her brother during a ceremony honoring the former Dodger and LGBTQ+ pioneer at Dodger Stadium Friday.

(Ronaldo Bolanos/Los Angeles Times)

Burke came out in 1982, three years after playing his 225th and final big league game, in an Inside Sports article, “The Double Life of a Gay Dodger.”

“We just appreciate that now people are opening their eyes and just trusting in the Lord,” Burke-Henderson said Friday, “that things will go forward and work out and everybody will be loved regardless of their situation.”

The Dodgers first honored Burke in 2022, at their ninth Pride Night.

The next season, they made a mess of the Pride festivities, inviting and uninviting and then reinviting the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, a group known for its work in support of AIDS patients and whose members dress in drag, as nuns.

In 2023, the Dodgers also invited Bean — who was MLB’s senior vice president for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. He appeared in a pregame ceremony on the field while protesters gathered outside the stadium.

Bean died the next year, at 60, 11 months after being diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia.

Greg Baker, husband of the late Billy Bean, wipes away tears during a tribute honor Bean as a LGBTQ+ pioneer at Dodger Stadium on Friday.

(Ronaldo Bolanos/Los Angeles Times)

Once a Northeast Santa Ana Little Leaguer, Bean became valedictorian at Santa Ana High, played for Loyola Marymount and went on to appear in 272 big-league games — including 51 for the Dodgers in 1989 — before abruptly walking away from baseball in 1995.

It got to be too much, he’d explain later, continuing to hustle to keep his baseball career afloat while keeping his sexuality secret, acutely aware of the blowback he’d get if it got out.

“For nine years,” he told the New York Times, “I felt as though I had one foot in the major leagues and one on a banana peel.”

“When he left baseball suddenly, I knew something was wrong,” Bean’s mother, Linda Kovac, said Friday, pausing to wipe away tears. “He was playing very well, it wasn’t like he was kicked out or anything. And it just didn’t make any sense.”

When Bean finally told his family he was gay, in 1996 — three years before clueing in an unsuspecting public via a Miami Herald article — none of his loved ones blinked. That included his stepfather, Ed Kovac, the homicide cop and former Marine who’d had a partner on the force who was gay.

“He worked with someone that he respected, side by side, on criminal cases,” Linda said. “We’re still friends with that guy.”

Linda and Ed Kovac, parents of Billy Bean, hold hands in front of a tribute dedicated to their son at Dodger Stadium on Friday.

(Ronaldo Bolanos/Los Angeles Times)

Knowing someone — or of someone — who is gay or lesbian has long tended to dispel falsehoods and quell fears that might exist.

“One of the most important things any one of us can do in our community is be out, to be proud,” said Greg Baker, Bean’s husband. “The fact that someone can be out in a world that typically doesn’t have a lot of role models of the same ilk, it’s a brave thing to stick your neck out. It’s also very important.”

And it’s not a surprise, Baker said, that more athletes aren’t out in sports like baseball. Not with Gallup polling released last week telling us that with public acceptance of same-sex marriage and relationships in the U.S. has flattened after two-plus decades of growing support — down from 71% to about 65%.

“I want to thank the Dodgers organization,” Baker said. “It’s brave of them in this day and age to spotlight someone in our community when other organizations are trying to erase us.”

The Dodgers have done the opposite, putting up a permanent marker. A long time coming, a tribute to last.

Monte Carlo Liquors & Steak House is a lone brick island in a large asphalt lot that sits just over 100 feet from the Central Avenue Bridge that stretches over the Rio Grande in Albuquerque.

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The business’ name says everything: The front of the building lodges a liquor store selling the basic brands of spirits and beer. Around back, an arrow, painted garnet against an otherwise beige facade, points toward a red door sheltered by a small, domed awning. The words “steakhouse entrance” have been stenciled above in letters big enough to be seen two blocks away.

The 56-year-old throwback is often my first stop after landing in New Mexico. I have been traveling to the state regularly since the summer of 1999, when I attended my first of many writing retreats led by Natalie Goldberg, author of “Writing Down the Bones” and many other books. Its northern topography — the enormous sense of space, the way the light moves and colors shift against the mountains and desertscapes — keep me returning.

The 56-year-old throwback Monte Carlo Liquors & Steak House is often my first stop after landing in New Mexico.

Albuquerque, home to the state’s largest airport, is a gateway. It’s also the city with the longest continuous urban stretch of Route 66, named Central Avenue and running nearly 18 miles through its core. Two of my very favorite restaurants in New Mexico reside along this zagging sweep, both quirky and atmospheric and also grounding in their sense of place.

I return to Monte Carlo for two reasons: the honky-tonk atmosphere and the green chile cheeseburger.

Beyond the red door lies the platonic ideal of a Midcentury dive. The windowless dining room remains perpetually dim. Crimson pleather booths line the walls, which are covered with vintage beer signs and framed portraits of Elvis Presley and Marilyn Monroe … and Guy Fieri, who visited in 2008. A collection of model cars sits behind glass in one corner. It is easy to imagine a near past when cigarette smoke hovered like low cloud cover.

I cannot report on the fried appetizers or char-broiled steaks that comprise much of the menu. Occasionally I order a Greek appetizer — a nod to the heritage of Michael Katsaros, whose family still runs the place — which includes a block of feta sprinkled with oregano, olives, a single rolled grape leaf, slices of tomato and cucumber and, uniquely, thick blocks of salami.

Here’s why I return to Monte Carlo: the honky-tonk atmosphere and the green chile cheeseburger.

Chasing green chile cheeseburgers through New Mexico is sport for food obsessives. Cheryl Jamison, a longtime food writer who lives in Santa Fe, steered me to Monte Carlo years ago.

The staff grounds the beef sirloin daily, a crucial step. Seeds are visible among the chopped roasted chiles, smoky and vegetal and bringing some heat, overlaid with a single square of American cheese melted into place. The sting of a dry gin martini is exactly right between bites.

Is this the best green chile cheeseburger in Albuquerque? Impossible for me to say, but it is an excellent gauge from which to begin a survey.

The dining room is perpetually dim, and crimson pleather booths line the walls, covered with vintage beer signs and framed portraits.

The chile cheeseburger at Monte Carlo.

Wherever you’re headed from Monte Carlo, it’s worth a quick stop to admire the twin Route 66 Rio Grande markers that stand on either side of the nearby bridge. Their adobe color blends so seamlessly into the landscape that you could speed by them without much notice. They were installed in the early 2000s as part of the city’s public art programs. Their tiered form nods to the cloud terrace motif that appears repeatedly in New Mexico’s indigenous Pueblo art and architecture. It’s easiest at night to spy their subtle Route 66 logos lit up in red and green neon.

Red and green are the unofficial state colors of New Mexico, as you’ll see again and again on plates delivered by servers at Duran Central Pharmacy, the finest destination along Central Avenue for immersion into regional cooking.

Indigenous ingredients (corn, beans, squash, game meats, berries and piñon among them) and heavy Spanish colonial influences (chiles were said to have been brought to the area as early as the late 1500s) help define New Mexican cuisine.

Modern restaurant menus, with the familiar enchiladas and tamales and hard-shell tacos, can resemble Tex-Mex, but never say that to a New Mexican local. The chiles delineate culinary borders. “Red or green?” customers will be asked repeatedly. Meaning: Do you want your dish smothered in sauce made from roasted green chiles, or a simmered counterpart fashioned from dried red chile pods?

The combination plate, Christmas style, at Duran’s.

If you want both, as many of us do, the answer is “Christmas.”

At “Duran’s,” as locals call it, see and taste the distinctions on Duran’s combination plate, which includes one beef or chicken taco, one pork tamale and one rolled cheese enchilada with a side of pinto beans. Green has a toothier texture and fresher flavor; red is saucier with dusky, earthen undertones. Try the duo over a hefty knife-and-fork breakfast burrito filled with chorizo, chilaquiles, a bowl of chili or, a special on Wednesdays and Fridays, sopaipillas (pillows of fried dough) blanketed in cheese.

Founded in 1942, Duran originally had a soda fountain that converted to a sit-down restaurant in the 1960s. Touches of Midcentury Modern kitsch, especially a starburst clock on the restaurant’s roadside sign, marks its place along Route 66.

Touches of Midcentury Modern kitsch include a starburst clock on the restaurant’s roadside sign, marking its place along Route 66.

And yes, this building also pulls double duty as a thriving pharmacy. On return visits when I’m feeling too excited about jumping back into New Mexican foodways, I start at Monte Carlo for a cheeseburger and martinis before a second lunch of sopaipillas, “Christmas-style,” at Duran, knowing I can pick up ibuprofen and calcium carbonate for dessert.

Monte Carlo Liquors & Steak House is located at 3916 Central Ave. SW, Albuquerque, (505) 836-9886, monte-carlo-liquors.hub.biz

Duran Central Pharmacy: 1815 Central Ave. NW, Albuquerque, (505) 247-4141, duransrx.com