The aches & growing pains of homosexual softball

I'd forgotten this feeling. It's been a while since I played a softball tournament. But after 7 games in two days, a few too many celebratory beers at the end of the competition, and a v-e-r-y early start to get to the airport... I'm absolutely knackered. The legs are like lead, I've a nice knee-scrape from a kamikaze slide into third base, and that suspect achilles tendon has flared-up, so I'm hobbling around like a lame donkey.


Cheesy, I know, but the physical bumps and aches are easily forgotten when thinking back on the high-points of the weekend. We took a bunch of people, most of whom had never played together, and ended-up as a team. A proper bloody team that won quite a few games. It fits the template for every Hollywood sports movie ever made. And I'm a total sucker for it. We didn't quite manage to close-out the 'triumph over adversity' denouement by coming from behind with some last-ditch heroics in the last gasp of the final - but we did manage a respectable 4 knock-out rounds, and had some of our own cinematic moments on the way (chief amongst these was our plucky 5'2" shortstop managing to out-fox the captain of the biggest beariest team with an inspired bait & switch: a shout of "he's going home!!", a fake throw and a lightning turn to tag him out as he left the bag. Even his own team were yelling with glee: "SHE GOT YOU!! SHE GOT YOU!!" and we're all whooping and hollering.

Not only were we a scratch-team made-good. But we really were a rag-tag bunch too. A men's team with three women; we were black, white, latino, asian; aged from 20s to 50s, people raised in Taiwan, Mexico, Nicaragua, El Salvador, as well as Denver, Florida, California, and Wales. Another way that the team pushed my Hollywood buttons...I'm a sucker for Team Rainbow :-)

It also reminded my that - as a community - we can let the rainbow get a little monochrome sometimes. 

What makes a gay softball tournament a gay softball tournament? There's little on the surface to make it obvious. You have to keep an eye-open for the occasional over-zealous bedazzler action on uniforms, the slightly higher-pitched squeal of delight at a masterfully-turned double-play, or the team who are suspiciously coordinated: the exact same beer-belly, bushy beard, and baseball pants all-round. But for 90% of the participants, I'm sure it's the no-judgement atmosphere and the ability to hang-out with "like-minded individuals" that makes these gay softball tournaments so popular. 

So, what happens when we're so successful with our fun, non-judgemental, but still competitive softball tournaments that the straights want to join in? 

Do we start excluding them, on the basis of our own sense of exclusion from the straight world? Our retained sense of High School stigma? Did we create our 'safe spaces' to be safe? Or inclusive? 

In the States, this issue has come to its natural conclusion: quotas on straight players in gay teams. 

This article in the NY Times explores the issue: Three Straights and You're Out in Gay Softball League.

So sad. Gay softball isn't 'Homosexual Softball'. It's value lies not in the strict definition of the sexual practices of the participants ("Don't like cock, Mr? You're OUT!") and more in the cultural definition of what 'being gay' is all about. And surely that's about playing softball with people who don't judge. 

My take is that a safe space for softball is all about playing a sport we love, with people who don't judge us for our behaviour on or off the field. And there are plenty of straight "allies" who are EXACTLY the kind of people who I want to have on my team. And plenty of gay people who I'd rather weren't. So - for me - this isn't "gay softball" - it's friendly softball. And anyone who gets-off on that kinda action plays on MY team!