SF Gay Softball League celebrates 50 years of breaking barriers

by John Ferrannini

The San Francisco Gay Softball League is celebrating 50 years of uniting the LGBTQ and athletic communities.

Steven Bracco, a gay man who is the director of communications for the league’s board, was among several players who spoke with the Bay Area Reporter on the occasion of the milestone. Bracco, who also writes for Hoodline and serves on the board of the Castro LGBTQ Cultural District, said he’s been a part of the league for 14 years. Bracco has worked at the San Francisco Fire Department since 2017.

“I joined to play sports but also to find friends and community in the Castro and in San Francisco,” he said. “It’s an amazing feat to be able to be around that long.”

The league is “one of the last gay leagues around” from the 1970s, according to league Commissioner Vincent Fuqua, also a gay man.

“It’s such a milestone,” Fuqua said. “Especially considering how things are in this world, it’s a remarkable achievement and I’m thrilled and excited.”

The league has consistently been popular with B.A.R. readers in its Besties polls. Bracco said that over the 50 years, the organization estimates that approximately 30,000 members have participated.

The new season starts March 26. “This season we will have an estimated 600-700 members,” Bracco stated.

SFGSL is open to everyone in the LGBTQ+ community and allies, Bracco explained. The league has two divisions, the Open Division and the Women’s+ Division.

Jess Graves, a lesbian who has been involved with the league for 13 years, said,“the biggest thing is community, not only as a whole, but my team as well.”

The tournaments help foster [community],” Graves said. “I think it’s the variety of teams, the flexibility over the years – for example we’re the women’s+ division because we accept anyone who identifies as a woman – and I feel the league is ahead of the game on that.”

Women have full support of the league, Graves said.

“We volunteer for Pride, we have booths where each team if they choose can send volunteers to serve drinks and make money for both the league and teams, and so that gets us interacting with people,” Graves continued.

Graves took up the game again as an adult after a brief stint in junior high school.

“I grew up playing ball in the backyard and played one year in junior high and didn’t make the team the following year,” Graves said. “I was at that point, as a tween or whatever, where I thought I sucked. I didn’t start playing again till 2001 when the dot-com bubble burst, I was out of a job and my wife left me. I started in the city league, and when I heard about the gay league through a friend of a friend, I got involved.

The all-volunteer, nonprofit league has a budget of $136,000 for the coming year, according to Bracco.

“The league collects fees from its members and their sponsor organizations, which fund softball operations,” Bracco stated. “The primary expenses of the league are field rental and setup, umpire fees, and playing equipment. In addition, the league works with corporate sponsors to help fund activities for the league members.”

During its history the softball league is perhaps best known for a game against members of the San Francisco Police Department 49 years ago.

Roger Brigham, who was a longtime gay sports columnist with the B.A.R. and has been a sports journalist since 1982, said that while he was never a member, the league’s first big impact was to “normalize and de-escalate relations between the queer community and the police community.”

Homosexuality was first legalized in the Golden State after the Consenting Adult Sex Bill was passed in 1975. It was carried by thenassemblymember Willie Brown (D-San Francisco), who would go on to become the city’s mayor. It was signed by then-governor Jerry Brown during his first stint in office. Before then, and even afterward under different pretenses, police raids of LGBTQ establishments were common.

Starting in 1973, police and gay softball teams began playing each other. The gay softball team won for the first time the following year.