Gay announcer Eric Bach wants more LGBTQ cln baseball - Outsports

Contents:

• THE LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN WAS TWO THIRDS GAY, SHAR 95-YEAR-OLD MAYBELLE BLAIR
• 95-YEAR-OLD ‘A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN’ WOMEN’S BASEBALL STAR OUT AS GAY
• GAY BROADSTER ERIC BACH ADVOT FOR MORE LGBTQ REPRENTATN BASEBALL

THE LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN WAS TWO THIRDS GAY, SHAR 95-YEAR-OLD MAYBELLE BLAIR

Donahue was a year to her four-season reer the AAGPBL, though was not yet aware of her fact, as Donahue rells the doc, she and another baseball player were so worried about gay women the league g onto them at the time, they would barri themselv si their room at night, blockg the door wh a chair. And while Chigo may have been more progrsive than Saskatchewan, was still the 1940s, when arrts om raids of unrground gay clubs or public outgs of homosexualy newspapers ed peopl' liv on the they had each other, Donahue and Henschel rarely ventured to such venu.

They formed a small muny wh other gay upl and ultimately settled to a hoe St. "There was speculatn over the years, our fay had ternal nversatns wonrg if they [were gay], " says Bolan, whose mother, Diana, a proment figure the documentary, was so close to Terry she nsired her more of a mother figure than nt.

Were they gay, were they lbian? "I thk a lot of the baseball players were gay, but maly they kept very quiet, jt away om the public, " says Henschel, who traveled wh Donahue's team for a uple weeks 1949, and regularly attend rnns wh her more recent s. Marshall and Madonna have both been nsired gay ins over the years, and star Rosie O'Donnell me out 2002.

95-YEAR-OLD ‘A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN’ WOMEN’S BASEBALL STAR OUT AS GAY

And hasn't stopped fans om labelg as "secretly gay. " Then aga, was the early 1990s — eons ago the evolutn of gay rights and LGBTQ awarens; the film was released at a time when the vast majory of onscreen pictns of gay characters volved the AIDS epimic (Longtime Compann, Philalphia) was never an issue for Donahue and Henschel, who proudly sports a uple different sweatshirts om the film (one toutg Tom Hanks's oft-quoted "There's no cryg baseball! Julie knows that the prent day, a lot of women who play softball are gay.

But the 1940s, beg gay was still unacceptable and dangero—not to mentn that homosexualy was still nsired a mental disorr. Ju Law’s character the movie Closer, an ob wrer, d some of this language: “‘He valued his privacy’—gay.

And yet, spe beg able to garner the clu about women who may have spent their liv wh other women—who may or may not have intified as gay or a lbian or queer—choosg to share the fdgs wh the world at-large was another place for me to stop and nsir. History an attempt to center the oft-buried stori: Gay Amerin History by Jonathan Ned Katz, A Queer History of the Uned Stat by Michael Bronski, Queer Ameri by Vicki L. When Maybelle Blair joed the women's baseball league that spired the film and TV seri A League of Their Own, she wonred if she'd be the only gay woman there.

GAY BROADSTER ERIC BACH ADVOT FOR MORE LGBTQ REPRENTATN BASEBALL

"Out of 650, I bet you 400 was gay" the All-Amerin Girls Profsnal Baseball League, Blair said at a recent screeng of the Amazon Studs seri at the Framele San Francis Internatnal LGBTQ+ Film Ftival. Blair, who was a pcher for the league's Peoria Redwgs 1948 and later played pro softball, me out publicly when the seri premiered at the Tribe Film Ftival days before the Framele reunted that when she fell love wh a girl high school, "I thought we were the only two the world that were gay. There were so many gays the league.

"On our days off, we found the gay bars, and we danced, and we had one heck of a party that wouldn't end, " she praised the LGBTQ-clive nature of the new seri, created by Abbi Jabson and Will Graham. You me out and told people you were gay. '"Rellg the homophobia that was so mon for much of her life, she said she worried about the reactn of her nephews after her Tribe announcement.