Let the 45th Season of Cream City LGBTQ Softball Begin

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Nothing says spring hath sprung in Milwaukee like the ping of an aluminum bat smacking a chartreuse colored softball. So begins the Saturday Softball Beer League’s (SSBL) 45th season.  Coming out of two seasons of coping with on-again off again scheduling, travel restrictions, self-isolating and vaccination hesitancy as the tide of the pandemic ebbed and flowed (at one point SSBL tried issuing colored wristbands, the color indicating the wearer’s social distancing comfort level), the league announced a return to normalcy with games starting on Saturday, April 30 and played at its traditional venue, Wilson Park, on the city’s south side.

According to SSBL Commissioner Kurt Baldwin, 10 teams have registered with another two new team sponsors awaiting confirmation. Deadline for team sign up is April 15.

Dairyland Classic

Later in the season, SSBL’s annual tournament, the Dairyland Classic is scheduled for Aug. 6–7 at Wirth Park. With the waning of the pandemic, the event is expected to be bigger and better than last year. “In 2021 we hosted 21 teams. That number was much lower than in the past due to pandemic and conflicts to other regional softball events. This year’s Dairyland Classic should be back to normal as the international tournament like it always was,” Baldwin said.    

SSBL volunteers will again staff an American Family Field concession stand. The SSBL concession volunteer program began as a fundraising effort to help finance NAGAAA-Fest, the 2009 Gay Softball World Series held in Milwaukee in 2009. After a hiatus of several years, the program was revived and now constitutes the league’s major funding resource. Baldwin noted the effectiveness of the effort, citing in 2021 SSBL volunteers worked 49 games and raised a grand total of $80,394.02 in sales commissions and tips.

This season, the SSBL contingent will be present at 42 games (out of 81).  Thus far, 34 volunteers have signed up and additional ones are still being recruited. Each volunteer has their own account to be used to offset costs for participation in tournaments, the gay softball world series (held this year in Dallas, TX, Aug. 27–Sept. 2) as well as for gym memberships and health behavior programs like smoking cessation. Non-softball players who volunteer may direct their earnings to other LGBTQ leagues or community groups. SSBL’s charitable giving group, SSBL 4 MKE, donates a portion of the funds raised to a local beneficiary. Last year it gave $3,000 to Milwaukee’s youth support organization, Pathfinders. SSBL 4 MKE also brings in local LGBTQ group to run a field concession during its games at Wilson Park to raise funds. SSBL supplies the food and refreshments, and the group keeps the money from their sales.

Community Engagement

SSBL’s glory lies not only in its near half century of making Milwaukee LGBTQ history, but also in its broader community engagement.  Teams epitomize diversity and inclusion with most rosters made up of a mix of genders, ages, sexual identities and ages. Beyond its local sponsors, players and fans, SSBL has always been a stalwart ambassador of Cream City to the greater international softball community. Having hosted the Gay Softball World Series three times, SSBL has also raised the city’s profile as a welcoming destination.

In my heyday as a player on the Milwaukee Gay Arts Center Scream, the only team not sponsored by a bar, I tried reaching out to various organizations that, to my thinking at the time, would logically want to become involved and field a team. To my great disappointment, each had an excuse not to. One showed some tepid interest albeit one based in the pragmatics of fund raising for itself, asking if SSBL had a “big mailing list”.  Admittedly, even a Gay Arts Center board of directors’ member once asked (with an obligatory eye roll), why we had a softball team. My response was “because we’re part of the community … and it’s fun.”

Again, deadline for team sign up is April 15. Registration details for teams and players as well as volunteer opportunities may be found on SSBL’s social media page.