Cap tip to Colorado’s Randy Davenport for this news story. (Randy pitched for the 1991 ASA “A” National champion Boulder Springers. Trivia question: Who was the runner-up that year?)
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Reporter Irv Moss writes about stars from the past
By Irv Moss
The Denver Post
Harvey Sterkel learned his trade in Denver at City Park during the late 1940s. (Courtesy of National Softball Hall of Fame )
If you saw the finished product, it would be difficult to think Harvey Sterkel had to be talked into pitching softball.
As the “in crowd” would say, “He could bring it.”
In 1959, Sterkel single-handedly pitched the Aurora, Ill., Sealmasters team to the ASA national championship. Sterkel won eight games in a row, including 24 scoreless innings in three games on the final day, and in 60 2/3 innings he struck out 84. He beat the Clearwater (Fla.) Bombers twice on the final day by 1-0 scores.
“I threw fairly hard and was able to make the ball move on every pitch,” Sterkel said. “My best pitches were a low-rise ball and a low outside curve. I had pretty good control and was able to keep my pitches low in the strike zone.”
While Sterkel gained his most prominence as a softball pitcher after leaving Denver, he got his start at the storied softball field at City Park. It was there that he watched Larry Bollig pitch as a youngster. Sterkel became determined that pitching softball would be in his future.
“I would sit in the dirt at City Park and watch Bollig pitch,” Sterkel said. “He was the ultimate pitcher around here at that time.”
The time was the late 1940s, and, as everywhere, Denver’s residents were trying to move on from the World War II years. Softball at City Park provided summer evening entertainment.
The field, since gone, had bleacher seats down each line to the outfield fence, and there were portions of the outfield fence where cars could pull up to the fence and passengers could watch games from their cars.
“The City Park League was a very good league,” Sterkel said. “When I look back, I realize that the players there were as good as any in the country.”
Sterkel remembered an important event in his softball development occurred about the time he was watching Bollig pitch. His older brother, Robert Sterkel, had just gotten home from World War II military service in the Navy and became his mentor.
“I’d come home from school and he’d say, ‘Let’s go pitch.’ And I’d say, ‘Not tonight.’ But he’d always insist,” Sterkel said.
After pitching in Denver, several times against Bollig, Sterkel came on the radar screen of the Sealmasters team. In 1956 he moved to Aurora, Ill., and became one of the greatest softball pitchers ever.
Sterkel’s credentials are on record at the National Softball Hall of Fame, where he is an inductee. They note that he posted a 345-33 record for the Aurora team from 1956-69, including 60 no-hitters and 15 perfect games. In ASA national championship play, he was 43-24. And in two appearances in the ISF World Tournament, he chalked up a 7-0 record, striking out 75 batters in 45 1/3 innings, and was the MVP of the tournament in 1966.
Sterkel said his pitches were never clocked, but some comparable pitchers who were timed sent the ball at hitters standing 46 feet away at 94 miles per hour.
Sterkel pitched for 31 years, including stops with Denver teams Western Springs, Public Service, Naval Air Station and Denver Merchants. He returns to Denver on occasion to visit family members, including brothers Donald and John Sterkel.
He has one pitching loss that he remembers. His fifth-grade boys team at Garden Place School lost to the sixth-grade girls team. The winning pitcher was his future wife, Gloria.
His name brings back memories of a different Denver and a different time.
“I
grew up in Globeville and in those days that was at the edge of town,” Sterkel said. “I played in the Oldtimers Baseball League, but really all we needed was a ball, bat and a glove and a few of us to get together, and we’d make up our own games.”
Harvey Sterkel bio
Born: May 19, 1934, in Denver.
High school: Denver North.
College: Aurora (Ill.) University.
Family: Wife, Gloria; sons Robert, Ronald and Steven; daughter, Susan.
Hobbies: Woodworking, church choir, barbershop quartet.
Outlook: Sterkel still works full time and plans to continue doing so as long as it’s fun and he’s contributing.