Baseball is a game of numbers.
And the organizers behind the latest “Pride Night at the Braves” couldn’t be happier with the numbers they counted on April 19. They sold out the 150 tickets set aside for the event, raising about $600 for Atlanta Pride and the Atlanta Gay Sports Alliance, and even attracted some stragglers who joined the crowd in the upper decks after buying their own general admission tickets when the others sold out.
Many of those who suffered through chilly temperatures and an even more stinging loss by the Braves were like Sir Brandon Barron, who enjoyed the game despite not being a baseball fan.
“I’m not much of a sports fan, but I’m learning it’s pretty fun,” Barron said. “I’ve never been to a Braves game and figured why not?”
The event was also the first trip to a Braves game for Betty Couvertier, a volunteer for Atlanta Pride who also hosts a gay-themed radio show on WRFG 89.3 FM. Couvertier said she’s a news junkie, not a sports fan.
“I figured what better way to outreach and see some gay folks I might not normally see,” she said.
Despite encountering a handful of anti-gay protesters outside Turner Field, organizers called “Pride Night” a resounding success.
“We had a phenomenal response and are grateful to the community,” said Mike Horton, AGSA’s chair. “Pride is excited and we are excited. It is a great showing for the community.”
The event marked the first “gay night” at the Braves since 2002, when about 500 people took part. A year earlier, some 2,000 people participated to support Atlanta Games, a group that led an unsuccessful bid to land the 2006 Gay Games in Atlanta.
But the sellout this year has Horton and Donna Narducci, Pride’s executive director, considering a second “gay night” later this season.
<p>“People are glad we are providing this opportunity,” Narducci said. “It is stepping out of the box.”
Turning a loss into a worthy cause is nothing new for those versed in the AIDS epidemic. The same holds for the family of Jay Shlesinger, a heterosexual Atlantan who died of complications from AIDS in 1995. He learned he was HIV-positive in 1989, eight years after a blood transfusion for injuries he sustained in an auto accident.
After Shlesinger died, his family wanted to recognize the resources that were available to them and created a fundraiser centered on golf, which was one of Shlesinger’s favorite activities. Funds raised by the Jay Shlesinger Memorial Golf Tournament support HIV prevention assemblies for students in grades 7 to 12 as part of AID Atlanta’s Ask Us Teens program. The event costs $400 per golfer.
