The overcast sky April 27 couldn't cloud the excitement that was Opening Day of the annual Chicago Metropolitan Sports Association ( CMSA ) 12-inch Open Summer Sunday Softball Season. ( Pictured: A scene from opening day. Photo by Ross Forman )
The aluminum bats were back in play. Same with the leather gloves, cleats, eye-black, knee braces and ace bandages. The CMSA's Open Summer Sunday Softball Season is the nation's largest LGBT softball league—with 43 teams and 650 players in 2007, and even more registered this summer.
Said players include this reporter, who played second base and batted second for Charley's Angels in the C2 Division. The Angels—formed with mostly new players, and with no matching uniforms yet thus better resembling the Bad News Bears than a potentially Gay Softball World Series-bound club—suffered two losses, enacted by the slaughter rule. But the energy, excitement and, ugh, the expected aches were there, clearly showing why softball remains the most popular sport in CMSA.
In the games, which were played at the multiple fields at Margate and Clarendon Fields along the lakefront, friends became teammates and also became rivals—at least for the 60-minute games, played under Amateur Softball Association of America ( ASA ) rules.
Chad DePauw is this year's Open Commissioner, assisted by Jack Neilsen, Shawn Albritton, Greg Sego, Scott Fiero and Chris Vernald, among others. Mark Febonio spent more than six hours on the dirt, umpiring four games, then pitching twice for the B-Division Spin Cougars. His team lost a heartbreaker on a walk-off three-run home run to the Basil Hayden Buzz of the C1 Division, then re-grouped to crush its second opponent.
'The excitement of softball has a lot to do with the camaraderie of the players,' Febonio said. 'CMSA softball offers an atmosphere of inclusion, acceptance and understanding, regardless of the level of play.
'The thrill of putting the bat on the ball and putting the ball in play brings joy to everyone, if they're veterans or it's their first time on the field. There's so much joy playing softball in nice summer weather where it can be broken so simply and so easily: swing, hit, run [ and ] score.'
Sportswriter Ross Forman will contribute men's and women's softball reports throughout the season.