From: Surasky@aol.com
Date: Fri, 15 Mar 1996 09:48:59 -0500
Subject: Gay Men and Police Play Together -C Surasky

Gay Men and Providence Police Fight it Out in Public Park
Cecilie Surasky   

In many ways, the stereotypes that met head-on in a playing field in Johnston
last Tuesday night couldn't have been more different. The stereotype that
dictates that all gay men are "artistic and unathletic and therefore weak,
feminine and unmanly." And the stereotype about policemen, who are all
"heterosexual, bigoted and aggressive to the point of being brutal." 
Those myths quietly exploded in the middle of the softball field when the
Yukon Mounties, a gay softball team, beat the Providence policemen by 20 to
16 in a charity game, and the Providence police accepted their defeat with
graciousness and maturity.
The game raised over $1,000 for DARE, the police-sponsored youth drug
prevention program and Rhode Island Project AIDS, the state's largest AIDS
service organization. But for many involved, the game was about more than
raising money. It was about raising consciousness. It was the culmination of
a journey that for many started, like mine, when they were little kids.

The last time I played serious softball was in Philadelphia in 1978 when I
played first base for the Saint Maria Gorretti girls team. My own public
school had no interest in sponsoring a girl's softball team - or any other
girl's team that year. I was lucky I had somewhere else to go.
I shouldn't have been surprised.
The school's sports coach would regularly stand in front of the class and
show his impressive biceps while telling us "Boys have muscles like these."
Then he would say, "but girls have muscles like these" while he'd wave his
hands in the air in the form of a Jayne Mansfield hourglass figure. 
He put all of his time into having boy's teams that year because he
understood that there would always be teams for boys. He had learned and
internalized so well culture's belief that a daily dose of competitive sports
was essential for the proper development of healthy masculinity. That all
healthy, red-blooded American boys had a natural skill at running, playing
baseball or shooting hoops. 
He in turn passed onto us the belief that any boy who didn't do sports was
somehow defective. Those boys were like...girls. 
And so, in every school there were always the boys who didn't get picked to
be on teams; the boys who just got  picked on. The boys who couldn't or
wouldn't do the push-ups, the weight lifts, the lateral passes. In school,
those were the kids who got called faggot and sissy in the schoolyard by
other children who barely understood the meaning of the words, yet screamed
them  in proud imitation of their parents.
Some of those little boys who couldn't or wouldn't play ball did grow up to
be gay. They didn't find it natural to pummel other boys on a football field
or in a boxing ring. They too learned the message that being athletic was
genetically part of being male, being heterosexual, being masculine, being
respected. And that to be non-athletic was to be feminine, to be powerless,
to be a faggot. 
Late at night, their mothers and their fathers admitted to each other that
they feared something was wrong with their sons. They feared that their sons
wouldn't grow up to be real men. Real men...like construction workers or
police officers.
Chris Martinez was one of those boys who grew up getting teased in the
schoolyard for being "feminine" and klutzy. The Yukon Mounties manager Bill
told how as an adult, although he knew nothing about playing sports, Chris
made a commitment to become an athlete. He joined a softball team in the gay
league and within 2 years went from being afraid of the ball to being "a good
hitter, a solid catcher--an exceptional ball player. " 
That year, shortly before Chris died of AIDS, Chris's team went to the Gay
World Series and came in 2nd place. "His proudest moment," said Bill, "was
going home with his trophy and ball and glove playing catch in the backyard
with his father. It was a long awaited reconciliation." 
So was the game between the Providence Police and a group of gay men.

Everyone admitted they thought the gay team would probably lose.  
As Detective Carl Weston, the manager of the Police Department team
acknowledged, "We thought we would win. Not because they were a gay team, but
because we won our league championship this year. We're one of the best teams
around." 
But the Yukon Mounties had a track record too. Even though they could never
quite make it in the home league, they consistently did well in national
competitions and had just placed second in the Gay World Series in Nashville.
But even so, the old fears held firm and they weren't confident they could do
well. 
Explained Bill, the Yukon Mounties manager, "We went there anticipating that
we were going to have to play hard to win. They [the Police] went there
anticipating they were going to win without having to give their full effort.
They were a good team but they were taken off guard by the fact that there
was a gay team that could play up to a caliber that they weren't
anticipating. "
And everyone was taken off guard by the fact that in the fifth inning, the
Yukon Mounties were beating the Providence Police by a score of 18 to 3.
Maybe that's why Detective Carl Weston was so quick to say, "We'd love a
re-match."
Maybe at the re-match, the biggest stereotype of all will be blown to bits.
Maybe we'll see the gay men who always got picked for teams when they were
little; the gay men who  played exceptional football in high school; the gay
men who grew up to be big, burly Providence police officers. Maybe we'll see
those men come out proudly on the softball field next year in Johnston. And
maybe their teamates will treat them with the same graciousness and maturity
with which they treated the Yukon Mounties.