Ball Game

Ball Game was a long-running Milwaukee gay bar at 196 S. 2nd Street, open from 1974 until 2012. It was founded by Gene O'Brien and Rick Kowal in a building that had previously housed earlier gay bars, including the original Nite Beat, Castaways South, and Jamie's. Promoted as Milwaukee's first gay sports bar and an early gay showbar, it hosted drag shows, pageants, and sports teams, and made its St. Patrick's Day anniversary an annual tradition.

O'Brien died in 1985, after which Kowal ran the bar alone for nearly three decades. By its 2012 closing it was among the longest-operating gay bars in Wisconsin, having lasted 38 years at the same address as the surrounding bar district declined.