Sunny skies and warm weather greeted America’s Finest City Softball League for opening day 2004 this past weekend. The picture perfect day highlighted why gay sports have become such a popular pastime in San Diego’s GLBT community, and most importantly, the action of the field proved that the competition in the league this year is going to be as good as ever.

“Opening day was absolutely brilliant,” Jim Costello, co-commissioner of the AFCSL, told the Gay & Lesbian Times. “The weather was fantastic, there is a full host of new faces and we are thrilled about having all the new players and all of the returning players. The games went as scheduled and the weather just couldn’t have been better.”

Thirty-eight teams are competing in the league this year, most of which played in double headers on opening day. The big winners this week included Moby Dick’s Last Call in the Women’s A/B Division, who picked up a pair of wins, defeating Powerhouse Gym 19-2 and the Ono Sushi Sliders 20-3. In the Women’s Rec Division Big O, Peacemakers, Bad Apples and Hamburger Mary’s all went undefeated.

In the Open Division, the Bourbon Street Crush, San Diego’s lone A team, picked up wins over The Loft, 30-6, and ROK/Flicks, 9-6. Currently Tara’s Diegans is the only team in the B Division with a perfect record. In the C Division The Bourbon Street Gators, the Center Starz and Shameless all pulled off back-to-back wins to secure 2-0 records at the end of the first week of play. Last but not least, in the D Division Bacchus House and the Moby Dick’s Magnums both picked up two wins to lead their division.

The AFCSL is heavily promoting softball this year, building up to next year when San Diego will host the Gay Softball World Series, which they won the bid to host in Dallas last month.

“That is just the icing on the cake,” Costello added about the excitement of hosting the weeklong tournament in San Diego. “The way our seasons are going they’ve just been building and building and people are gathering support for softball in San Diego and we’re looking forward to the World Series.”

Games are played every weekend at Hourglass Park in Mira Mesa and at the Poway Sportsplex, and the AFCSL is hoping to get more people involved in the gay softball league either playing or as fans.

“We would absolutely invite anyone out to the games to watch,” Costello said. “It’s great fun and it’s great socializing.”

For more information on the America’s Finest City Softball League, visit www.gaylesbiantimes.com and click on this story for a link to the league’s web site.