History

Timeline

1980's

East Van roots

“Back in the late ’80s, Joanne Beatty and some friends would get together at Britannia secondary school’s gravel baseball diamond to play softball and drink beer, often at the same time. Although Beatty played in a competitive softball league in Richmond, she also found time for more informal games with other members of the lesbian community. ‘It was drinking beer and having fun,’ Beatty says of those East Side pickup games. ‘After a while, we started to think that we had enough women for a league.'”

~ from Georgia Straight’s article “It’s how you play the game” August 1, 2007

1980's

1990

Mabel is born

“…a few of them decided to form a league and hammered out rules, a schedule, and a constitution. They named the league after Pam Brown, a woman in the leagues [sic] whose nickname is Mabel.

The Mabel League formally came into existence in 1990. In its early days, the league consisted of a handful of teams of wildly varying skill levels.”

~ from Georgia Straight’s article “It’s how you play the game” August 1, 2007

1990

2001

“You Wish” logo

2001

2012

Rainbow logo

2012

2013

“Our Team” logo

2013

2015

Mabel logo

2015

2024

Mabel logo revised

2024

Seeking Mabel Historians!

Do you have old swag, stories, or memories of Mabel through the years? We’d love to hear from you as we pull together more robust archives of Mabel’s history and place in Vancouver’s cultural fabric.

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