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While Major League Baseball worries about the scourge of performance enhancing drugs, there's one league where, if you want to play, you better not be too straight.

Three San Francisco men have filed a lawsuit (PDF) in federal court in Seattle, alleging that their team was disqualified from the 2008 North American Gay Amateur Athletic Alliance World Series because, as bisexuals, they were deemed "not gay" after their opponents lodged a protest that the team was violating the rule limiting each team to two "heterosexual" players.

The complaint is full of interesting tidbits, like the procedure whereby the league's "Protest Committee" called each of the plaintiffs (and three other players whose gayness was questioned) into a room and, in front of a crowd of 25, peppered them with questions about their sexual preferences before voting on whether the men were gay or not.

The plaintiffs allege not only discrimination based on sexual orientation, but also based on race. All three plaintiffs are minorities, and they allege that some of the other players who were initially challenged and gave identical answers to the league's queries were confirmed gay, and thus eligible.

So, for purposes of next year's NAGAAA tournament, Billy Bean -- yes, Mike Piazza -- no. I think the league loses in that deal.

Posted by Eric Lipman on April 22, 2010 at 10:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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