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Memorial Day weekend is the first big weekend for softball tournaments. This year, tournaments will be held that weekend in every corner of the country: the Minuteman Classic in Boston; the Armory Classic in Atlanta; the Lone Star Classic in Houston; the Golden Bear Classic in San Francisco. These last three tournaments are all sanctioned by the North American Gay Amateur Athletic Association (NAGAAA), which was originally founded to promote the playing of gay softball here and abroad.
The very beginning of NAGAAA was in 1977, before the group had its name, when softball leagues from New York and San Francisco wanted to hold a World Series to determine the best gay softball team in the U.S. That first game pitted hometown San Francisco against New York. The home team won. NAGAAA has since grown to include almost 50 gay softball leagues in 30 cities with over 15,000 members in the U.S. and Canada. "There
One of the leagues that joined 15 years ago was the Chesapeake and Potomac Softball League in Washington DC, which joined shortly after Chip Brown was invited to play. "I had just come out and the first guy I met asked me if I wanted to play softball." Brown has played ever since, and even has served as the local League Commissioner. He says that the early success of his league was due to support of local bars - in exchange for putting the bar into the name of the team, the bar would let the team hold fundraisers at the bar. Brown's team, which he now manages, is JR's Gamecocks. "With JR's as a sponsor, they allow us to sell jell-o shots at the bar and make a couple hundred bucks every Sunday. They've always been very supportive of us." One of the best parts of being in NAGAAA, Brown says, is the opportunity to attend softball tournaments all over the country. "It opened up a lot of doors as far as meeting people from all over the country. It's funny how some of my best friends now are in cities I wouldn't know without softball." One of Brown's best friends is Jim Marks, whom he met at a tournament in 1991, and who pitches for the Atlanta Comets. Marks is best known as his drag personality, Bubba D. Licious. Every year at the Gay Softball World Series, since 1990, there has been a talent show that raises funds for local youth, AIDS or cancer non-profit organizations. Various teams put together skits and performances for the show and it raises several thousand dollars every year. Almost every year since 1992, Bubba has hosted that talent show.
"In 1988, the World Series was in Dallas and they decided to have a rec tournament," Marks says. "Many cities had powerhouse teams and the same team from each city went every year. That year, every city got to send a rec team. The following year, there were two divisions." With two divisions, however, came problems. Without specific guidelines as to how to define a rec team, some of the lower-ranked teams in the competitive division dropped down into the rec division to try to win that tournament rather than losing in the upper division. Marks served as commissioner of NAGAAA in the mid-90s, and his lasting legacy there will be the institution of player ratings. To determine a player's rating, his is rated on various skills and he is given a rating of zero to 27. Depending on the combined rating of the top ten players on a team, that team is placed into a certain division - of which there are now four, from A to D. "Now that leagues are growing," says Marks, "this is really important because it allows more and more people to play as more people come out of the closet." The rating system, of course, opens up another can of worms. "I think there are individuals, teams and leagues who are willing to compromise a point here or there to win a lower division," Marks says. "They'd rather take home a trophy in C Division than finish in the bottom part of the B Division." In order to curb this poor sportsmanship, penalties for player misrating can range from a simple disqualification in the World Series to expulsion of that team's entire league from NAGAAA. Last year's World Series saw four teams disqualified from the World Series because of players on those teams rating themselves too low.
Despite the breadth and recognition of NAGAAA, there are other teams and leagues that choose to remain independent of the Association. In 1998, Russ Crumley formed the Central Florida Softball League with some friends. Despite not being a part of NAGAAA right off the bat, they were able to quickly form an eight team league that has now grown to include over 450 players. In the last two years, the Central Florida Softball League took a vote of its membership as to whether to join NAGAAA. The membership decided against it. "Overall, I guess the members of our League have never been convinced (by NAGAAA or our officers) of the relevance of NAGAAA, the value of joining, and how it would benefit our local community," Crumley says. There are certainly disincentives to joining NAGAAA. In addition to a league's annual fees, a representative from the league must attend a meeting twice a year to continue membership. For many "weekend warriors," this is simply too steep a price to pay. "The bottom line is that NAGAAA is a non-issue for the average player who just wants to have fun and socialize with friends," says Crumley. "The competitive World Series means very little to a community-based league who caters to this kind of player." Still, there are thousands of players every year who make that trek to the World Series for the chance to make new friends and maybe, just maybe, win the whole tournament. This November in Sydney, though, even non-NAGAAA members will have a chance at the gold.
Teams, both in and outside of NAGAAA, will be making the trek to Sydney in November to compete in the Games' softball tournament. Steve Stone is the president of Team Virginia's Organizing Committee. Stone has played with the Poison Ivy since joining the Mid-Atlantic Amateur Softball Association (MAASA) in 1986. He will be traveling to Sydney for the Games with a team comprised of players from various MAASA teams and from all over Virginia. Team Virginia is focusing many of their efforts in hopes to defray some of the team's costs to go to Sydney. To help with the costs of uniforms, registration fees and travel, Team Virginia and the softball team will be trying various ways to raise money in the coming months. "Team Virginia will hold a walkathon and a raffle to raise money for the entire team (all sports)," says Stone. "The softball team will be seeking corporate sponsors who would have logo rights and, possibly, even naming rights with the softball team." While his team will be headed to Sydney with hopes of gold, Stone says that won't be the most important part of their trip. "Team Virginia's motto puts it best: Play proud. Be proud. Sure, we'll hope to win some games. And I'd be lying if when I go to sleep at night and think about the coming Games there isn't a bit of boyhood fantasy about winning it all. But my feeling is that if every member of the team has a good time, feels they have played their personal best and comes home with at least one new friendship built with someone half a globe away, then we've accomplished everything Tom Waddell was thinking of." |
has been tremendous growth," says present NAGAAA commissioner, Bill Sansom. "Fifteen years ago, there were 22 teams in the open division at the World Series; now there are about 90 open teams." 
As NAGAAA grew, the talent and experience level began to widen. Men who had never played softball before were now joining leagues with teams of former high school and college baseball players. 
AA is presently unable to be a part of the Federation of Gay Games. In their bylaws, NAGAAA restricts the number of non-gay players who can be on any given team. With the Gay Games' policy of total inclusion, NAGAAA cannot be instated into the Federation until that rule is changed, which isn't likely to happen anytime soon.