About

Albany Queer Baseball (The Chasers) began in June of 2025 with an open catch in Washington Park. We held four games in August, September and October, and concluded with our first annual Halloween Costume Game.

We play loose baseball, typically without umpires, at normal dimensions and with mostly wood bats. No walks, three swinging strikes for an out. We've played with as little as seven to a side and with as many as 18. Everyone gets to bat and get some field time if they want it. Depending on our opponent, we may play with a self-officiated umpire from the batting team. We rarely keep score, and never maintain stats.

We are not like other bar-sponsored rec leagues, we are closer to an old fashioned club of individuals united by similar characteristics and interest in baseball. We have relationships with similar clubs in other cities and states, and play them, but otherwise practice and hold games amongst ourselves.

The Chasers don't acknowledge gendered division in sports and have no rules based on gender. Baseball is just as much for women, nonbinary people and men of all kinds. The people in power may lead you to believe that queer sports, especially transgender sports, are an aberration, a joke, or a cheat. Unfortunately for them, transgender sports are as vitally human and as increasingly common as any other.

We owe the inspiration of our existence to the nationwide sandlot revolution and the Dock Ellis League. We are also proud to follow earlier and ongoing queer baseball teams such as the Quaker City Cryptids, the Durham Fruits and Palouse Gay Baseball, as well as the many closeted or dissuaded queer people of the past who did not or could not play sports in this way openly.