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Uncle Donald's Castro Street
The Gay Community
Softball League
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Gay Softball got its start in San Francisco in 1973 at the Tavern Guild Annual Picnic. That led to a tournament later in the year with 8 local bars each sponsoring a team. They were Kokpit, Mint, Missouri Mule, Mistake, Pendulum, Purple Pickle, Sutters Mill, and Twin Peaks. The tournament winner was Sutters Mill.
The best players of the tournament were chosen to form a team which challenged the team of the San Francisco Police Department Central Station. The police team accepted and beat the gay team 11 - 3.
In the Spring of 1974 "The Gay Community Softball League" was formed but soon found that most of the managers of public playing fields in the city refused to allow gays to use the fields. Through the intervention of Mayor George Moscone and State Senator Willie Brown, the gay league was allowed to use the fields. The league dropped the word "gay" and the league became "The Community Softball League", the world's first gay softball league.
The 1974 league members were Jeff's Gym, Midnight Sun, The Mint, Missouri Mule, The Mistake, The Pendulum, Sutters Mill, and Twin Peaks. The League Champion team, Twin Peaks, went on to beat the San Francisco Police Department Central Station team 9 - 4.
Other cities soon began forming gay softball teams and the 1977 gay softball season ended with the first Gay World Series with San Francisco's Badlands team beating the Ramrod, a gay New York team in a 3 out of 5 game competition. The following year, leaders of Toronto, Milwaukee, and New York leagues formed "NAGAAA", the North American Gay Amateur Athletic Alliance to oversee and promote the sport. In 2003 the San Francisco Gay Softball League celebrated its 30th anniversary. Today there are 55 NAGAAA affiliated softball leagues in North America. The 28th annual Gay Softball World Series will be held in Dallas August 15 to 21, 2004.
LINKS to GAY SOFTBALL SITES
 NAGAAA
HOMESTEAD - a history of gay softball
SAN FRANCISCO GAY SOFTBALL LEAGUE
TEAM SAN FRANCISCO
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