The Red Sox recently gave a start to a pitcher who just two years ago rolled out a homophobic tweet. In Los Angeles, the Dodgers caught hell from all sides when they invited, disinvited and then re-invited the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence to take a bow at Chavez Ravine. In Toronto, right-hander Anthony Bass apologized for sharing an anti-LGBTQ+ video on Instagram but later told reporters, “I stand by my personal beliefs.” He wound up being DFA’d.
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Suffice it to say, Major League Baseball’s celebration of Pride Month hasn’t been without its controversies.
But Boston’s queer sports fans now have more important things to worry about: They might be losing their beloved gay sports bar.
In an age when dating apps have made it so that old-fashioned, big-city gay bars are going the way of daily newspapers and mom-and-pop neighborhood convenience stores, Cathedral Station, located in the city’s South End, faces an uncertain future. The bar has been operating on a month-to-month basis since its lease ran out in 2020, and now a — what else — cannabis dispensary is poised to move into the building at 1222 Washington Street that has been Cathedral Station’s home since 2014.
The dispensary has already been approved by the Boston Cannabis Board. A virtual hearing will be held by the city’s Zoning Board of Appeal Tuesday morning at 9:30. Proponents and opponents will be allowed to weigh in via video conference call and by telephone.
And if Cathedral Station does close? Finding a new home in the city won’t be easy. “Prices in Boston are out of control,” said Billy Svetz, 81, a part-owner of the bar. “The future of gay bars, LGBT bars, whatever you want to call them, they’ll have to be smaller places that hold 100 people, 120 people, where you can get a lease. Nobody’s going to pay $5 million to buy a piece of property to own a gay bar.”
Rumors of Cathedral Station’s uncertain future have been circulating for months. And, alas, it’s deja vu all over again. For it’s impossible to have a discussion about Cathedral Station without talking about its predecessor, the much-loved Fritz, which operated for years on the corner of East Berkeley and Chandler streets, about a half-mile away.
When Fritz closed in 2014 — again, it was a lease situation — Cathedral Station emerged on Washington Street. It’s basically the same ownership, some of the same staff, and, absolutely, the same clientele. The space formerly occupied by Fritz, meanwhile, is now The Trophy Room. While not technically a gay bar, it’s a lively, gay-friendly establishment that’s involved in Boston’s LGBTQ+ community, including its sponsorship of the annual Chandler Street Block Party.
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It’s not just the local yokels who fell in love with Fritz/Cathedral Station. Take, for instance, Dale Scott, a native of Portland, Ore., who made headlines in 2014 when he became the first active Major League Baseball umpire to come out as gay.
“That was pretty surreal for me … sitting in a gay bar watching myself do a plate game on television,” said Dale Scott, who was the first active major-league umpire to come out as gay. (File photo by Elaine Thompson / Associated Press)“The umpires used to stay in a hotel on Stuart Street,” Scott said. “One night, after I had worked the plate at Fenway Park, I was back at the hotel, looking for a place to go out and grab a beer. I found Fritz, which turned out to be very close by. I remember there was another gay bar nearby, a video bar, that was up over a restaurant.”
That would be the long-gone Luxor, located upstairs from Mario’s Italian Restaurant on the fringe of Bay Village, but that’s a story for another day.
“Fritz was definitely a sports bar,” Scott said. “Everybody seemed to know everybody. So I went in there that night after the Red Sox game, and of course, the NESN replay is showing on the screen. That was pretty surreal for me, especially since it was early in my career and I’m trying to make sure Major League Baseball doesn’t know I’m gay. And there I am, sitting in a gay bar watching myself do a plate game on television.”
Scott’s story offers a glimpse at what it was like to be a closeted public figure in the last decade of the 20th century. It also illustrates the spirit and camaraderie that’s long existed at places like Fritz, and, later, Cathedral Station, which took over a space that had been home to a shuttered Middle Eastern restaurant called the Red Fez.
Cathedral Station has never been much in the looks department. Save for some new tables and booths and a dash of elbow grease here and there, it’s basically the Red Fez with flat screens, a pool table, a dartboard and the requisite framed photos of Boston sports stars. Not far from the entrance, you’ll find a photo of Larry Bird, Bobby Orr and Ted Williams from their history-making 1992 appearance on Bob Lobel’s “Sports Final” program on WBZ-TV. Nothing says Boston sports like a team photo of three of the city’s all-time greats.
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The bartenders include Artie Oliver and Rob Mannke, who are themselves legends in that they’ve been serving suds at various Boston gay bars for decades. And in yet another nod to the passage of time, an old “Red Fez” sign is attached to a brick wall as you descend the stairs to the restrooms. It remains there either to pay homage to the building’s history or because nobody ever bothered to take it down.
“My tribe has always been the sports crowd,” said Sandro Frattura, 54, a manager in analytics engineering for Cambridge-based HubSpot. “I’ve never considered myself part of the genteel crowd. I’ve always played sports. The reason I came out is because I found a gay sports league, and Cathedral Station, and before that Fritz, has been a great supporter of all the gay sports leagues for years and it’s been the place where the jocks go hang out. There are other gay bars that are about looking cute or being able to dance or to pick up guys. This place, to me, has always been about watching a game and having a beer.”
Bartender Artie Oliver welcomes visitors to Cathedral Station, with many there to watch the Celtics against the 76ers in Game 3 of the Eastern Conference semifinals. (Steve Buckley / The Athletic)Indeed, this is not a place where you go to meet a guy; it’s where you go to meet six, seven or eight guys after you’ve just played a softball game at Smith Field over in Allston, just behind Harvard Stadium. Women dot the crowd at Cathedral on many nights, and it’s not uncommon for a regular to bring along a straight buddy or two or three.
It doesn’t help that the South End, once a thriving gay ghetto, is now a gentrified neighborhood of high-priced condos and fancy restaurants. What does help is Cathedral Station’s richly deserved reputation as Boston’s “Gay Cheers,” the place where everybody knows your name. It’s also a place where everyone knows your game, as in what team you play for in the city’s many gay sports leagues, from the Beantown Softball League and Tennis4All to the FLAG (Friends, Lesbians And Gays) Flag Football League and the Cambridge Boston Volleyball Association. Cathedral Station sponsors a team in most of them, as does nearby Club Cafe, which caters to a younger crowd.
And if you just want to watch a game?
“I come here because being around fellow sports fans who happen to be gay adds to the sense of community and belonging,” said Marc Davino, 57, director of development and communications for Casa Myrna, a nonprofit which provides support for people impacted by domestic violence. “I come here for Trivia Nights on Wednesday. And I pretty much come here any time the Celtics are on.”
On the night Davino spoke those words, May 3, the Celtics were playing the Philadelphia 76ers in Game 3 of the Eastern Conference semifinals. He was joined by Frattura and Sly Ward, 65, a former Fritz/Cathedral employee who is a chef at Hale Barnard House, which provides support services for the elderly, and also vice president of Boston Alliance of Gay Sports (BAGS). Interestingly, all three were die-hard New York sports fans growing up — Frattura in Jersey City, N.J., Davino on Long Island and Ward in Manhattan. Each in their own way migrated to Boston because of career choices and became friends over the years.
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“Mets fan, Jets fan, Knicks fan, those were my three teams,” said Frattura. “When I moved to Boston I quickly became a Red Sox fan because I hated the Yankees. I stayed a Jets and Knicks fan for about 10 years until I finally got sucked into the Pats and Celtics culture.”
Ward’s tilt to Boston’s sports teams was inspired by one man: Red Sox outfielder Jim Rice.
“Even though I was a Mets fan growing up, I was always paying attention to Jim Rice,” he said. “Every time I looked at the box score he was doing something. I’m a Black man, and he’s Black, so I identified with him. And when I moved here I’d say to people, ‘Why isn’t Jim Rice in the Hall of Fame yet?’ Nobody could give me an answer. And me, a guy who had followed his whole career growing up in New York, I’m screaming at people, ‘It’s a slam dunk! It shouldn’t take this long!’” (Rice was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2009.)
From left, Sandro Frattura, Marc Davino and Sly Ward watch the Celtics-76ers game at Cathedral Station. (Steve Buckley / The Athletic)Seated nearby was Andy Delery, 44, who works in the education field. Unlike Frattura, Davino and Ward, he’s a lifelong Boston sports fan, born and raised in New Hampshire.
“We wanted to watch the Celtics game somewhere, and also have some food and play pool,” Delery said. “So here we are. We had our food. And I played one game of pool and got crushed. Now we’re focused on the game.”
What Delery does share with Frattura, Davino and Ward — and with former big-league umpire Dale Scott — is that Cathedral Station’s predecessor, Fritz, is in his DNA.
“I’m a pretty competitive guy,” Delery said. “I played in the softball league for years and now I play in the kickball league, and it’s so fun to be in the leagues and then meet up at Cathedral — or before that, Fritz. It’s a place where you’re 100 percent comfortable if you’re gay. You don’t have to worry about how you look, or how you’re acting. Everyone has a favorite place they like to go, but it’s bigger than that. It’s deeper than that.”
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And Delery is happy to note it was at Fritz that he enjoyed his greatest moment as a Boston sports fan.
It was the night of June 15, 2011, and Delery had just returned to his fourth-floor walk-up on Montgomery Street in the South End. He wouldn’t be staying at home for long. The plan was to throw himself together and then head over to Fritz, where he would be joining his buddies to watch the Bruins game.
This was no ordinary night. June 15, 2011. The Bruins would be playing the Vancouver Canucks in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup final at Vancouver’s Rogers Arena, and Delery, 32 at the time, was in a hurry to get to Fritz for the simple reason that in his lifetime he had yet to experience a Black N’ Gold Cup celebration.
“I was so stressed because I was coming from work and was worried I wouldn’t get inside,” Delery recalled. “Sure enough, I get there and the line is out the door. The Bruins scored a goal in the first period, and when it happened I was standing on the street watching it through the window.”
Delery eventually got inside and joined his friends. And there they stood, cheering themselves hoarse as Bruins captain Zdeno Chara hoisted the Stanley Cup over his head following Boston’s 4-0 victory over Vancouver.
“There was such a great vibe that night,” Delery said. “To be at Fritz to see the Bruins win the Cup was really special.”
When Fritz closed, Delery and his crew took their business to Cathedral Station.
As did Frattura, Davino and Ward.
As did Dale Scott.
“I remember when Fritz was closing down and everyone was verklempt and worried about what was going to happen,” Scott said. “When I went into Cathedral for the first time, it was, OK, it’s a different setup and a little bit different vibe, but it was the same people — the same customers, the same staff. To me, it was still Fritz. Speaking as someone who didn’t live there, I was saying to myself, ‘Oh, good, they found a place to live. It didn’t just go away.’”
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Though Scott didn’t come out publicly until 2014, he had long since done so within the MLB community, including his fellow umpires. Scott by then was feeling sufficiently comfortable in his gay shoes that one night, after doing a Sox game at Fenway, he invited fellow umpires Ron Kulpa and Dan Iassogna to join him for a few beers at Fritz.
When they stepped inside, Kulpa, a man not burdened with filters, looked around and said, “Hey, where are all the women?”
In Kulpa’s view, sampling a gay sports bar back then in the company of a gay umpire was no big deal. It’s no big deal now.
“It was a good time the three of us had,” Kulpa said. “I think we stayed for a couple of beers, and then Danny and I went out and grabbed a steak somewhere and left Dale on his own.
“Dale had a bunch of friends there who were baseball fans,” Kulpa said. “They all knew him.”
Years earlier, when Scott stepped inside Fritz for the first time, it’s unlikely any of the customers knew he was a big-league umpire. He was certainly well known in baseball circles, and perhaps to this or that sportswriter because of a disputed call or a brush with a manager. I was covering a game at the Oakland Coliseum in 1988 when he ejected fiery Yankees skipper Billy Martin, leading to a brouhaha that landed Martin a three-game suspension — but in terms of instant recognition, it’s not like Dale Scott was Barry Bonds.
That Scott had long since liberated himself from any sort of anonymity while visiting places like Fritz and Cathedral Station — before coming out publicly — speaks to the growing confidence he was acquiring over the years. It also speaks to the respect he had earned: Nobody outed him.
“We all got to know Dale and we respected him,” said Gary Staples, 70, now retired and living in Tampa but for many years the manager at Fritz and later Cathedral Station. “He had friends in Boston after a while, and he’d come in, say hi to everybody, talk sports, have a few drinks. He became very comfortable coming by. Everybody knew when he was in town.”
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Scott retired in 2017 and now splits time between homes in Palm Springs, Calif., and his native Portland, with his husband, Michael Rausch. He busies himself by attending Pride festivals and other LGBTQ+ events throughout the country.
His memoir, “The Umpire Is Out: Calling the Game and Living My True Self,” co-written with Rob Neyer, was released in 2022. Scott went on a promotional tour, mostly appearing at bookstores, but also did a signing at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y.
In Boston, his book signing was held at Cathedral Station.
“We decided to have it there,” Scott said, “because Cathedral Station is home away from home for me.”
(Top photo of Dale Scott (left) listening to Red Sox manager Terry Francona argue a strike call in 2010: Damian Strohmeyer / MLB via Getty Images)
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