By Don Winger
Thirty-one years ago, thousands of softball fans descended on Currie Stadium in Midland’s Emerson Park to watch the Amateur Softball Association Men’s National Fastpitch Championship that featured 22 teams.
Starting on Aug. 13, fans will have the chance to see the top men’s fastpitch teams again when the Midland Explorers and Mickey’s Sleds play host to the International Softball Conference World Tournament.
The 1979 tournament turned into a special event when Midland’s McArdle Pontiac-Cadillac captured the national title.
A crowd of more than 9,500 packed Currie Stadium that Saturday night in September to watch as McArdle defeated reigning champion York Barbell of Reading, Pa., to claim the championship.
McArdle, emerging from the losers’ bracket of the double-elimination tourney, defeated Reading 1-0 in 10 innings to force the “if-necessary” game.
Bob Ryan and Owen “Fog” Walford teamed up to pitch McArdle to a 3-1 win in the title-clinching game. McArdle was managed by Terry Collins, who later went on to manage baseball’s Houston Astros of the National League and the Anaheim Angels of the American League.
McArdle was made up of the top fastpitch players in Michigan. Prominent among the Midland players on the roster, in addition to Ryan, were second baseman Jack Starling, first baseman Jim Wright and catcher Nelson Cronkright.
Both Starling and Cronkright played key roles in the game-winning rally of the first game against Reading. Starling had a single and Cronkright drove in the winning run with a fly ball.
McArdle then went on to Tacoma, Wash., in July 1980 to represent the United States in the ISC World Tournament, which McArdle won by beating Canada 3-0 in the title game.
The 1979 ASA tourney was hosted by the Midland Redcoats, a group of local softball enthusiasts who worked tireless hours before and during the event to make it a success.
For those of us in the media, it was a fun time. We got to watch and write about some of the top fastpitch players of that era. Among them were pitcher Ty Stofflet and slugging first baseman Jeff Seip of Reading. Also notable were outfielders Bill Stewart of Seattle and Ray Allen of Santa Rosa, Calif.
In perusing the Daily News archives, I found stories we did about the Schlossers and their tasty French fries, about prominent ASA commissioners, about McArdle’s chicken mascot, and about hand-woven gloves.
There were interesting personalities such as umpire-in-chief Merrit Watson, ASA Executive Director Don Porter, McArdle’s statistics man the late Greg Bell, and Mitchell Mick, the radio voice of the ASA.
Helping me with coverage was Paul Neumeyer, then a college student and now sports editor of the Saginaw News, and Steve Griffin, now a longtime freelance outdoor writer for the Daily News.
This will be the ISC’s first trip to Midland. Hopefully, we will welcome these players and their fans as enthusiastically as we did those ASA players and fans in 1979.
It is true that men’s fastpitch teams are no longer as numerous as they were 31 years ago. But the elite teams coming in 2010 are just as talented as their predecessors.
So if you make your way to Currie Stadium during the tourney, I guarantee you’ll see some quality play and have a fun time as well.
Don Winger is the retired executive sports editor of the Daily News.
