The Play Bocce In Dogpatch league’s inaugural season began in June and runs until mid-August. The league’s eight teams consist of residents of Bayview, Potrero Hill, Mission Bay, and, of course, Dogpatch.
Dogpatch resident Adam Gould created the league to bolster the number of neighborhood-based bocce teams. He also wanted to increase the amount of play following a COVID-19-induced delay to late-July of the San Francisco’s Ferry Bocce League’s season.
“When you play Ferry Bocce there are 47 corporate teams and one neighborhood team,” Gould said. “When we discovered that the Ferry Bocce League might not happen this year, I wanted to do something.”
The Dogpatch league is more lighthearted than the Ferry Bocce League, which plays on courts on the Embarcadero, focusing on community building, Gould said.
Gould has been a player with the Dogpatch Howlers, which competes in the Ferry Bocce League, for the past three years.
Gould reached out to Dogpatch resident Bruce Huie, who helped found the Howlers in 2013, to garner his help starting a neighborhood league. They coordinated their efforts with The Dogpatch and Northwest Potrero Hill Green Benefit District’s Executive Director Julie Christensen. The GBD works to maintain and expand green spaces in Dogpatch and Northwest Potrero Hill, including Progress Park.
“The GBD’s involvement is pretty minimal,” Christensen said. “Neighbors built the bocce court, and Progress Park where it is situated.”
Huie said his role was “largely centered on encouraging participation by as broad a group of neighbors as possible, coordinat[ing] updates to the courts.”
The Power Station, which is developing residences and commercial space in Dogpatch, donated funds to upgrade the bocce court at Progress Park. Volunteers helped replace the court’s gravel with a sand and oyster flour mix to give it a “look and feel like a more official bocce court,” Gould said, adding that a scoreboard made of railroad ties donated to the Green Benefit District by the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency is being planned.
The league’s second season will begin this Fall.
Photo (top): Neighbors enjoy a bit of bocce. Credit: Adam Gould
