Soft Balls

Last November, a Seattle, WA, court ordered the North American Gay Amateur Athletic Alliance to pay an undisclosed settlement amount to three men who were disqualified from the 2008 Gay Softball World Series because of their perceived heterosexuality. The men's sexual preferences were apparently called into question when a protest was filed against their team for violating a league rule limiting teams to two heterosexual players per team, a rule which I assume was created to ensure every team had at least two "pitchers." The aggrieved players countered claiming they were not straight, but bisexual, and because they were not full-blown gay they were being discriminated against.

In response to the complaint, lodged by other teams in the league, a protest committee was assembled to question each man about their sexuality and lifestyle. Then, according to the report, the committee voted on whether or not the man being questioned was, in fact, gay. The committee ultimately judged only two of the five men subject to the probe were gay. Those two were handed a single red rose and allowed to continue to the elimination round... Okay, that last part didn't happen.

Anyway, the other three men were determined to be "not gay." But here's the rub, um, issue. The three men appeared to have met some qualification at some level to support their assertion that they were bisexual. According to NAGAAA rules, bisexual is considered to be gay for team roster purposes. Anyone who follows sports recognizes this as an important point because that means being bisexual doesn't count against what could only be described (by me) as the heterosexual hard cap (think "salary cap for penises"). In hetero-layman's terms, you're allowed to fill a roster with switch hitters who can handle any position instead of having a roster that's loaded with catchers.

Perhaps it was the team photo that raised suspicion.

As part of their argument, the players asked the court to throw out the roster limit on straight players as discriminatory, which I don't get. There are only three categories in question here: gay, bisexual and straight. If you are either of the first two, straight discrimination shouldn't be part of your argument, and to me using it kind of implies you're straight. I think this because I played for a church softball league for a couple of years. In order to play, I had to be a member of the church. So guess where I was every week during the season? Back pew with three other "Christians." I got away with it because nobody made me prove I was a Christian. I could have been asked anything about God and, well, I'm not going to get any points for saying I thought about reading the Bible. Likewise, to play in a gay softball league, I don't believe you can get a pass for saying, "Well, I thought about blowing a guy once."

I don't condone the exclusion of one particular lifestyle in favor of another. I've played sports with gay men and gay women, straight women, straight men who played like they were gay, guys with physical disabilities - hell, I played on a team where you'd think we were all disabled. We respected each others' personal differences and got along with our lives. Unfortunately, not everyone thinks like that. There exists a need to stay in one's comfort zone, so I understand the importance of establishing an organization subscribing to a certain philosophy that generates acceptance and stimulates member growth openness within that membership, and they should be allowed to make the rules - whether good or not - to maintain that solidarity. Legal precedence has been established to support this. The Boy Scouts come to mind, having successfully prevented the openly gay from participating in their organization (Remember, it's Boy Scouting, not boy scouting).

The establishment of the legitimacy of the rules isn't the question here; the skirting interpretation of the rules is. The NAGAAA, to its credit, moved to clarify the rules regarding bisexual and transgender players, welcoming them as participants, and further stated the disqualifications in question were not consistent with its goal. As one official put it, "We fought hard to protect ourselves and our core identity and I am relieved this issue is finally behind us."

Which, given the circumstances, seemed to be where they'd prefer to put it.

Happy New Year!

Welcome to 2012. Sorry I'm late.

According to an interpretation of the Mayan calendar, it's going to be a short year. Doomsday is predicted to fall on December 21 because that's when the Mayan calendar ends. Apparently that's all it takes. A calendar ending.

My wife made a calendar last year. Even though her calendar ended on 12-31-2011, there was a 1-1-2012. I was surprised until she told me her secret to preventing human extinction: she made a new calendar for this year. Sounds relatively simple enough. All you have to do is start the months over, change the last digit in the year, and add an extra day in February every four years. You can pretty much do that until you die, or until your hand cramps up and you simply stop. Which is what I believe happened to the Mayan's official calendar maker. He just stopped.

It would be understandable if he did. It was a big calendar. And not because it was made of stone. I've kicked myself for writing the wrong date on a check. With a pen. On paper. This guy's cutting rock. Can you imagine the pressure of not missing a day? He could have triggered some sort of cultural faux pas by accidentally putting a little chip on a Thursday in June. Yeah, I know they didn't have Thursdays or Junes back then. This is an analogy, so unless you're Mayan, don't be so critical.

Anyway, put yourself in this guy's sandals...

Blogger's note: For all of you women asking, "Why is it a he? Why couldn't the calendar maker be a woman?" the answer is as simple as it is sexist. The supreme Mayan court - all men - reviewed a lower Mayan court's all-male decision that women could not engage in any activity, other than birthing and basket weaving, that was outside of the food service industry. The higher court upheld the decision 4-1, with the lone dissenter having his head chopped off by a vote of 4-0 for being a pussy. The supreme court's decision, literally written in stone, was interpreted by an archaeology expert, also a man. So until someone finds a Mayan basket calendar...it's a he.

As I was saying, you're the official Mayan calendar maker, and you're sitting around chiseling out that calendar...chiseling out year after year after year. You get to 100 or so years and take it to the boss. He likes it, but says, "Better take it out a bit more. Just to be safe." So there you sit and you knock out a couple hundred more years. Maybe you add a another fifty, not to kiss his ass, but as a thankful gesture for him giving you the time off to watch the sun set during the solstice celebration. Whatever.

But things change and now you have a new boss, a real forward-thinking, go-getter type. He says, "When can you stop? There is no stop. That's why Oxzectlata got his head lopped off...no ambition." The new boss tells you the Gods told him the dynasty will last forever, "So keep chipping the rock, Jack." Anyone who's ever worked for this type of boss knows the party is over for him as soon as the punch bowl is empty.

A few years go by and the boss is scheduled to get his new string of beads to show he's vested in the organization. When he leans over so the shaman can bestow the honor, dude gets the ax...right across the back of the neck. One big schwap! and there it goes, right down the ceremonial steps into the crowd. How's that for announcing a job opening! So all you can do now is go back to the stone and keep adding years until they hire a new boss who can tell you to stop. But it's a civil service job and the hiring process is painstakingly slow. Now you're 5,000+ years into the project and the civilization is predicted to become mired in a decline caused when men with white skin show up and start subdividing chunks of high-end real estate on the coast with mortgages backed by superior fire power. You say "Fuck this", drop your chisel, and tell everyone you're going north to San Diego because you heard the weather there is awesome.

I may have embellished the story a tiny bit, but you get the picture.

Anyway, there sits the Mayan calendar, waiting on someone's dynastic to-do list to get extended. Unfortunately, the prophecy of a hostile takeover holds true when boats full of Spaniards hit the beaches, so #1 on the list changes to "survival" and a few things don't get done. A few millennia later some pith-helmeted post-grad on an archaeology fellowship weed-whacks some vines off a pyramid in the Yucatan and finds a big, round rock with inscriptions cut into it. He determines it's a Mayan Long Count calendar and takes it to his professor. The professor announces this incredible find and takes credit for the discovery. The post-grad is pissed off because he knows the professor is an idiot who can barely wipe his ass, let alone write a grant. But the post-grad can't do anything about it because the professor has tenure. So the post-grad says, "Fuck this", walks away from his incomplete dissertation, and tells everyone he's going to San Diego because he heard the weather there is awesome.

Meanwhile, the incomplete dissertation gets passed around and because it ends without an ending, "scholars" believe the ending is the end. But they'll be wrong, because my wife made a calendar and her calendar ends on 12-31-2012. And rest assured my wife will make another calendar that will start on 1-1-2013. It, too, will go a full year.

So fear not the claims of the end of the world. As long as my wife makes a calendar for subsequent years, there will be subsequent years to calendar. And civilization as we know it will continue to exist. At least until she gets tired of making calendars. When that happens, I'm going to say "Fuck this", pack my things, and go to San Diego because I heard the weather there is awesome.