Big Time Goodtime – The Gay Softball World Series Proves That The Best Way To Get Is To Give 

They were the first Major League Baseball franchise to record three million paying attendees in one season.  They were the North Star State’s first Major League Baseball franchise before that, of course…and, this August, the Minnesota Twins will add another vibrant first to their pioneering history:  they will become the first Major League Baseball team to co-sponsor the Gay Softball World Series, said Series taking place in the Cities from which the Twins take their names.  

The Gay Softball World Series is pretty much what it sounds like.  Its boosters swear it’s “the largest annual LGBTQ single-sport, week-long athletic competition globally.”  The GSWS is presented by the North American Gay Amateur Athletic Alliance which also is pretty much what it sounds like–that is, according to its website, NAGAAA is “a nonprofit organization dedicated to the promotion of amateur sports competition, particularly softball, for all persons regardless of age, sexual orientation or preference – with special emphasis on the participation of members of the gay community – and to otherwise foster national and international sports competition by planning, promoting and carrying out amateur sports competition.”

Taking place every year, the Gay Softball World Series is the throbbing heart of such amateur sports competition…but as to where that heart will throb, that’s chiefly up to the taking place places.  And, where the North American Gay Amateur Athletic Alliance is concerned, there are taking place places a-plenty:  beginning its 46th season, NAGAAA currently has 46 member leagues—that is, queer softball leagues in cities all around the upper half of the Western Hemisphere, from Atlanta to Vancouver and from Cincinnati to San Antonio.

Year after year, NAGAAA’s member cities attempt to win the right to host the GSWS in a competition that’s often fiercer than anything seen on the softball field.  One reason any given community might covet such an event has less to do with hits and runs and more to do with dollars and cents.  Before this year’s bids began, the 2023 Gay Softball World Series was projected to attract to the host city 5,000 visitors, give or take a bat boy.  These athlete/tourists would inject, so it was supposed, seven million smackers into the local economy before and after innings.

This notion resonated with Sports Minneapolis (which is a division of Meet Minneapolis, an organization whose self-described work is “promoting Minneapolis and attracting visitors.”)  When the iconic Twin Cities Goodtime Softball League, one of NAGAAA’s members, decided to try its hand at turning the ol’ home field into a championship field, the two entities joined forces.  Further abetted by numerous other local entities, they rallied around a butch bid lyrically entitled “Lighting Up The North.”  

The pitch evokes a powerful image, an easy one to aspire to and be inspired by and to rally around:  solar radiation crashing into the planet’s magnetic field, turning the night sky into a shimmering half-rainbow, gold crowding out green, green crowding out blue, and blue crowding out gold.  Whether through poignant imagery or the sheer politeness of the presentation, the bid succeeded…but the lights produced by a Twin Cities-based Gay Softball World Series might well be of a more abstract variety.  

When it’s played between August 28 and September 2 of this year, the Gay Softball World Series will be comprised of 900 games contested in sports complexes all around the metro area, including Burnsville, Eagan, Inver Grove Heights, and South Saint Paul.  That number of games is necessary because NAGAAA recognizes seven divisions of play ranging from the Type A A-rank to the downright-sanguine E-rank, as well as two oh-what’s-the-hurry-second-base-isn’t-going-anywhere 50-and-older Masters divisions.  Each of these contests will be complemented by an opening ceremony, a NAGAAA Hall of Fame induction, a charity night, and a closing ceremony.  

This number of softball games requires local patronage, and the Twin Cities have come through big time.  Sponsors of “Light Up The North” include Modist Brewing Company, Morrie’s Auto Group, Purpose Restaurants, Q Care Plus, Quorum (“Minnesota’s LGBTQ+ and Allied Chamber of Commerce”), Roxy’s Cabaret, the Saloon MN, the aforementioned Sports Minneapolis, and…annnd…well, how ‘bout that..?  

…and the Minnesota Twins.  

Tuesday, August 29, 2023, will be Light Up The North Night at Target Field when the Minnesota Twins will take on the Cleveland Guardians.  A special ticket package includes admission, of course, along with a co-branded Gay Softball World Series/Minnesota Twins hat.  A portion of each package purchased will benefit the Twin Cities Gay Softball World Series organization because a World Series, whether it’s amateur or professional, softball or baseball, doesn’t grow on trees.

The Twins’ commitment to the GSWS goes beyond a single themed night.  In fact, when the bid for the 2023 Gay Softball World Series was won, then-Minnesota Twins Senior Director of Diversity and Inclusion Miguel Ramos was there.  “We’re a vibrant and diverse community that celebrates how sports brings communities together,” he said in a press release announcing the victorious bid.  

It’s that vibrancy that’ll matter most during the 2023 Gay Softball World Series, of course, that vibrancy that Lights Up The North—spectacular lights, generated not from glimmering cosmic forces, but by the people making it all happen.  The players and the coaches and the umpires will be the most obvious lights, but the people watching and cheering and vending and visiting and sponsoring and volunteering—well, they’ll be shining, as well.  Volunteers might well the be the brightest sparkles, and volunteers can do their thing via the website below.

Ultimately, the 2023 GSWS will be about the local professional team syncing its vibrancy with that of its local amateur counterpart…and having a little fun while doing it.  “We are committed to cultivating a culture of sportsmanship and supporting the LGBTQ+ community,” the website of the Twin Cities Goodtime Softball League declares. “The G stands for ‘goodtime!’”

www.lightupthenorth.org/
www.lightupthenorth.org/volunteer