Photo courtesy Lacey Johnston Longtime softball player Sue Tyler of Belchertown, who helped organize the umpires for the league, up at bat during a game in 1988.

Photo courtesy Lacey Johnston A member of the Red Scare team is up to bat in 1992, while the Serious Choice team is catching . Player and longtime league member Lacey Johnston has made a documentary about the Mary Vazquez Women's Softball League, which has been operating in Northampton for 32 years.

In 1976, South Hadley resident Jean Grossholtz and what she calls her "10 Jewett Lane lesbian household" placed a classified ad in the Valley Advocate seeking women to play softball.

"We had been playing pick-me-up softball," said Grossholtz, 79, a retired Mount Holyoke College professor who still lives at 10 Jewett Lane. "Some of us wanted to play big time softball, the rest of us wanted to wear uniforms. You always like a woman in a uniform."

Grossholtz named her team Hot Flashes and sought women who'd never played softball.

"If someone wanted to pitch but they'd never pitched before, we'd let 'em pitch," she said. "There was a time when the Hot Flashes was THE team to be on."

And so began a feminist women's softball league that in its heyday was as much the social hub for the lesbian community as it was a place to play summer sports.

Though never exclusively a lesbian league, it certainly was predominantly lesbian over the years.

While over the 32 years the league has been around, its role in the community has changed. But it is still going strong: both Hot Flashes and another founding team, Common Womon, (named after a long-ago, lesbian-owned Northampton restaurant) no longer exist, but there are 10 teams playing this summer.

Northampton resident Lacey Johnston, a 20-year player who this summer is on a team with her 16-year-old daughter Masha, has made a documentary called "In League With Us: The Story of the Mary Vazquez Women's Softball League." The league was named in 1991 in honor of a longtime city resident who had served as league commissioner for 15 years

Using video footage from games and interviews with nearly two dozen players, Johnston created a 54-minute documentary that chronicles the evolution of the league."I'd gotten so much enjoyment out of this league, it brought so much enjoyment to me, that I wanted to give back," said Johnston, 53.

She also wanted to get oral histories on record before they were lost for good.

"This league is so unique in so many ways and it's never been documented on its qualities and what it brought to the Valley," she said. "Some of the main organizers are getting on in years."

Johnston, who works as an independent computer consultant, basically taught herself how to use the video equipment after taking a few lessons. She said the project, which spanned about two years, tapped into three big passions: video, women's sports, and history. She shot about 70 hours of video, including every game in the summer of 2006.

The film is by turns funny and poignant, as players recall some of the quirky aspects of the league, such as: After one memorable game on a very hot summer day, some players stripped off their tops.

After that, the league adopted a rule that shirts must be worn at all times, which Johnston calls "the shirt rule."

Or this: endless discussions about the league philosophy that players had to be supportive of the other teams.

In several interviews aired in the film, players laugh when reminiscing about the need to process, sometimes in the middle of a game, when action was known to stop so players could talk about whether the game was getting too competitive.

League rules are listed now on the league Web site, including one dubbed "The 1987 Rule," which states what an umpire should do if players are unkind:. "Any behavior that interferes with the spirit or progress of the game, including but not limited to, abusive statements, unsportswomyn-like comments ....will elicit a warning from the umpire to the team reps." A second violation results in a forfeit.

Patricia Griffin, a former University of Massachusetts professor, said her longtime team, the Common Womon, "was like a family."

Griffin, 67, played third base for years on the team. "We survived the beginning and ending of relationships, we survived the death of teammates," said Griffin. "We celebrated, and we played softball."

Johnston said she was struck during the course of her interviews to hear players talk about how important the league was to them.

Griffin showed the film at a team reunion held at her home recently.

"From an old-timers perspective, she did a really good job at capturing the spirit of the league as it was," she said. "It was very special."

The film was shown last month at an academic conference and Johnston is now sending it around hoping to air it at film festivals in the region and beyond.

She is also selling copies of the film to individuals and educational institutions via her Web site www.ellejayproductions.com.

Meanwhile, Johnston said she's watched as both the players and the fans have evolved with the times.

"The fan base has changed," she said. "It's still girlfriends, but it's also their co-workers, their friends, their husbands, their children, so it's much broader."