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Fair Play: How gay
is gay softball?
HASSLE-FREE
en g in eerin g
NEW CAR?
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4 1 0 N E 17TH AVE.
5 0 3 .2 3 3 .LUXE
Sports writer Grantland Rice once said,
“I t’s not whether you win or lose, it’s how
you play the game.”
I t ’s an age-old adage that serves ball play
ers well. But what happens when you change
the rules o f who plays the game? W hat effect
might it have on who wins and loses— espe
cially if, until recently, most o f the players
were gay?
The Rose City Softball Association,
which begins its regular season the weekend
of April 17, has instituted a new rule that al
lows an unlimited number of straight-iden
tified players to play on what were, until this
year, essentially all-gay teams. It may be a bit
too early to ask what long-term effect the
decision will have on Portland’s only gay-
identified softball league (there are 19 teams
in the Open Division League), but it’s not
too soon to ask when and why it happened.
“During- a February 2009 meeting o f
managers— all who are gay— a proposal was
made to eliminate the ‘two heterosexual lim
it’ language from our Open Division Rules
of Play,” says Jake Packer, 47, currently in his
second term as the RCSA’s commissioner.
“[We] discussed the pros and cons related to
the proposal, including legal ramifications,
moral [and] community responsibilities, and
the intent and language o f our by-laws. A t
the conclusion, we held a vote and decided it
was best for the Open Division to eliminate
the rule.”
The new ruling hasn’t set well with some
of the players, including Tim Bias— aka
“Mr. Gay Baseball,” the RCSA’s last com
missioner and its current public relations
ambassador. Bias, 45, wants to reinstate the
two-hetero limit so he and his teammates
can participate in the nationals, which still
limits the number o f straight players on gay
teams. The RCSA hosted the 2002 North
American Gay Amateur Athletic Associa
tion Gay Softball World Series in 2002.
“Jake just wants to win games,” says
Bias, a 15-year member o f the Redwings.
“The RCSA is a social place where you get
to meet other gay men outside of dark, loud
bars. There is no smoking and no drinking.
I t’s real gay men right there, all around you.
I have made so many great friends playing
ball. And many others have found love as
well.”
Packer assures skeptics that the RCSA
is a gay community softball league whose
mission is to “provide the best gay softball
experience” for everyone, from beginners to
the most competitive o f athletes. He also
believes it’s “a little misleading” to say the
RCSA is allowing an unlimited number of
straight guys on their roster o f teams. “It pre
supposes that there are an unlimited number
of straight guys who are clamoring to be on
gay softball team rosters,” Packer says.
Kevin Burke, 40, plays on one o f the
RCSA’s teams, The Bears. He joined the
team after moving here from Los Angeles,
where he’d played ball, and trying out for
Portland’s straight league but never hearing
back from them.
“In all fairness, I was weighing in at
about 320 pounds at the time,” says Burke,
admitting that “being heavy puts you on the
‘invisible list’ despite whatever skills you
might demonstrate.” Still, the initial rejec
tion prompted him to forget about the sport
until spring 2008, when a Craiglist search
turned up a call for players. “I answered the
ad and heard back almo&t immediately from
[Bears manager] Ryan Brown,” he explains.
Brown informed him that the RCSA was a
gay and lesbian league, Burke said “it did not
m atter” and was soon on the field— and bet
ter still, dropping the pounds as a result.
“Most often, heterosexual
players come to us
at first ’because I just
like ploying boll with
you guys.’ but upon
discovering the gay
softball community
embraces them, [they]
find the strength to come
out os goy themselves."
- JAKE PACKER.
COMMISSIONER OF THE ROSE
CITY SOFTBALL ASSOCIATION
The friendly, welcoming spirit o f those
early days proved to Burke that the RCSA
was where he belonged, gay or straight.
“That’s the first thing that the league gives
me: a sense o f acceptance and belonging,” he
says. “That’s pretty powerful. And a sense of
value. I felt valuable to the team both as a
player and as a person.”
For Packer, the RCSA works as a “gateway
mechanism” for some individuals to recon
cile their sports upbringing and heterosexual
pressures with their secret and conflicting
desire for members o f the same sex.
“M ost often, heterosexual players come
to us at first ‘because I just like playing ball
with you guys,’ but upon discovering the
gay softball community embraces them,
[they] find the strength to come out as gay
themselves. This has happened more times
than I can count,” adds Packer. “They come
to realize that it is okay to identify' as gay
and be a jock. And no, we don’t hand out any
toasters when that happens.”
Toasters or not, why change the rules?
And why now?
Questions such as these prompted Bias to