DELHI TOWNSHIP, Ohio ‒ Jack Colston put down his beer and straightened his back, grimacing as his girlfriend struggled to zip him into a hot pink dress without snagging his wig or popping the two balloons he’d just stuffed into his bra.

His uncle, Rob Penny, stood a few feet away, wearing red lipstick and a less elaborate outfit.

“You went too far,” Penny said, chuckling.

Colston smiled. “Because I’m prettier than you?”

It’s not a conversation the two men would likely have any other day of the year. But on this Friday in early August, the night of Delhi Township’s annual Skirt Game, the moment made perfect sense.

At least the moment made sense here, in the Delhi Park lodge, where Colston, Penny and a dozen other male softball players known as “The Ladies of the Skirt Game” gathered to squeeze into hip huggers and haphazardly apply makeup around beards and mustaches.

To them, the game they were preparing to play was part of a goofy but harmless tradition, a charity event that’s raised more than $1 million for needy Delhi residents since 1978.

But 45 years is a long time. People can change after so many years, even in conservative, West Side suburbs like Delhi Township, where the idea of a bunch of men playing softball in bad drag somehow became a thing without ever creating a fuss.

Until this spring, when suddenly it did.

For Colston and the other players, the ground beneath their bobby socks shifted overnight.

It happened in March, after they applied for their annual permit to play at Delhi Park. Critics of the event mounted a letter-writing campaign urging township trustees to withhold the permit unless the players took the “skirt” out of the Skirt Game.

A Catholic nun wrote that the game “belittles women by focusing on our body parts.” The mother of a non-binary child said it harms “our most vulnerable and marginalized neighbors.” Others called the game “cruel,” “transphobic” and “outdated.”

Most said they didn’t believe the players and organizers intended to offend anyone, but the effect was the same. The game needed to change with the times, they said. It needed to join the 21st Century.

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The game’s defenders packed the next trustee meeting to demand their permit. Some were angry. They complained about political correctness ruining everything and said that if someone didn’t like seeing middle-aged men in skirts they could just stay home.

The trustees relented. The game would go on. If this was Delhi’s entry into America’s culture wars, it ended in a rout.

Still, as they dressed Friday night for the first Skirt Game since the uproar, Colston and the others worried about the future. What if the complaints continued? What if the trustees changed their minds next year?

“I understand the world is changing,” Colston said, now zipped snugly into his pink and white nurse’s outfit. “But why change something that is awesome?”

When they finished dressing, the players posed for a team photo and climbed into pickup trucks for a short parade from the lodge to the field. Outside, they found the parking lot and stands packed with fans.

They shot off confetti and tossed candy to kids. Vendors hawked cheeseburgers and brats. Speakers mounted on a truck selling pizza by the slice blasted ‘80s music, mostly with themes befitting the occasion, like Aerosmith’s “Dude (Looks Like a Lady).”

If not for the men in makeup and petticoats, it could have been another West Side church festival.

Sami Penn, who was there with her husband and four young children, has been coming to the game since she was a kid. She said she doesn’t know anyone who’s ever complained about the game and doesn’t understand why anyone would.

“It’s all in fun,” she said, watching her kids scramble from one inflatable bouncy house to another. “I don’t think they mean to offend anyone.”

Penn speculated that those who criticized the game this spring either have never attended or just don’t get it.

“It’s almost like an atheist being offended by a Catholic church festival,” she said.

Sherri DeMoss, a Skirt Game board member, said the group that runs the game wanted to understand the complaints raised this spring. She said one of the first calls was to Cincinnati Pride, which does outreach and runs programs supporting the region’s LGBTQ community.

“The goal is never to make someone uncomfortable, or feel you’re making fun of them,” DeMoss said.

The game began as a fundraiser for an injured boy, she said, and grew into a charity that donates tens of thousands of dollars to needy Delhi families every year. No one wants the act of raising that cash to hurt anyone, DeMoss said.

She acknowledged, though, that there’s only so much the Skirt Game could change and still be the Skirt Game. Like it or not, men in dresses are a big part of the event’s identity.

“At the end of the day,” DeMoss said, “sometimes you’re just not going to like everything.”

The Skirt Game always has been an acquired taste, even if those who don’t care for it mostly kept silent until this year. Some say there have been occasions when the guys did or said things that might have pushed the boundaries of a PG-13 rating.

And then, of course, there’s the whole men in dresses thing. “We felt like the intention was good,” said Andrew Bare, Cincinnati Pride’s board secretary. “I think there have been times in the past it didn’t come off appropriately.”

Pride’s board decided against a formal stand for or against the game. Bare said he has mixed feelings, too.

“I wouldn’t say I condone the event,” he said. “I wouldn’t say I’m calling for a stop to the event.”

No one showed up to protest the game Friday and those who complained in March have been quiet since then. The Enquirer tried to reach several of them by phone or email last week, without success.

Their silence doesn’t mean they’ve changed their minds. At the meeting this spring, Trustee Rose Stertz said those who felt hurt by the game’s theme were too afraid to attend or to speak out publicly.

For some at the game Friday, there remained an undercurrent of irritation about the complaints this spring. Some said people were too sensitive nowadays and others said they feared the Skirt Game would one day go the way of Native American mascots, such as the Washington Redskins and Cleveland Indians.

Steve Weberding, watching the game from the parking lot, placed the blame elsewhere. “Keep the gays out of it,” he said. “That’s what started the whole thing.”

His friend, Lynn Murphy, disagreed. “Everyone should learn to get along,” she said.

Her sentiment was more prevalent Friday night. Fans and players said they hoped people in Delhi and beyond could see the game as they do, as a chance for residents to have fun and come together for a good cause.

Mike and Missy Wagner made the rounds in neon green volunteer shirts, selling pull tab tickets to raise money for charity. Mike said the Skirt Game offered to help with his medical bills after a serious motorcycle accident 15 years ago.

He turned the offer down because he had insurance, but he’s been volunteering here ever since.

“It’s been going on a long time and I enjoy it,” he said. “I don’t think there should be controversy in that.”

As he spoke, the Ladies of the Skirt Game played on the field nearby. Their dresses were getting dirty and the balloons they’d stuffed under their shirts were askew. They all seemed to be having a great time.

Before the game, Colston, the youngest player at 22, said that while he knew the world was changing and some old traditions were fading away, he hoped the game would survive long enough for his 1-year-old son to play with him some day.

“I would love to have my kid grow up and remember the Skirt Game, too,” he said.

For now, though, Colston was enjoying the moment with the rest of the guys, clowning for the crowd and shaking his hips, as if nothing had changed at all.