{"id":3726,"date":"2009-10-08T21:10:11","date_gmt":"2009-10-09T04:10:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/morningbrief\/?p=3726"},"modified":"2009-10-08T21:10:11","modified_gmt":"2009-10-09T04:10:11","slug":"1970-romas-inn-softball-champions-heading-to-bay-county-sports-hall-of-fame","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/morningbrief\/?p=3726","title":{"rendered":"1970 Roma’s Inn softball champions heading to Bay County Sports Hall of Fame"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n1970 Roma’s Inn softball team that won the Class B fastpitch state championship.<\/em><\/p>\n

By Lee Thompson<\/em><\/p>\n

There was a time when fastpitch softball ruled.<\/p>\n

And Roma\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Inn was king.<\/p>\n

The 1970 Roma\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Inn team brought together a bunch of ballplayers in their prime, loving life and living for the game. And they lived it to its fullest while winning the Class B men\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s fastpitch state championship.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Those were the good old days \u00e2\u20ac\u201d you don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t forget those days,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Bob Stewart, an outfielder during Roma\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s title run. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The camaraderie with all the guys… you can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t beat it.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

That unique squad gets a chance to reunite this month with its induction into the Bay County Sports Hall of Fame. The local team is part of the 19th induction class, which will be honored Oct. 25 at the DoubleTree hotel and conference center.
\nRoma\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Inn was built to win, and it delivered. The Bay City-based squad captured invitational titles in Lansing and Owosso in the summer of 1970 as a prelude to the Class B state tourney \u00e2\u20ac\u201d and that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s exactly how manager Leo Urban planned it all along.
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153When I first decided to form this team, I went over to Ray Fick\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s house, knocked on the door and handed him a brand new first baseman\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s glove,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Urban said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Then I did the same thing with Bob Townsend. And they played with me ever since.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\nFirst baseman Fick and shortstop Townsend would form the heart of the squad, joining Stewart to give Roma\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Inn three former professional baseball players. But the entire team was loaded with longtime ballplayers, including infielders Don Goss and Don Warner, outfielders Roger Zacharko, Dick Jozwiak, Bob Hartwig and Don Kruger, catchers Jim Weller and Tom Pritchard and pitchers Urban, Dave Seidenstucker and Jim Roekle.<\/p>\n

And the experience showed.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We were very fundamentally sound because so many of us played baseball,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Stewart, who went on to play for five state championship teams. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153If the ball was in the air, somebody made the play. And once you got the ball, everybody knew what to do. We were very good at the fundamentals, and that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the way you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve got to be to win a state championship.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\nRoma\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s had to earn the title. After posting a fourth-place finish in the Tri-County League \u00e2\u20ac\u201c which featured high-powered teams from Flint, Saginaw, Midland and Oscoda\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Wurtsmith Air Force Base \u00e2\u20ac\u201c Roma\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s made its way through best-of-three series to claim district and regional crowns.<\/p>\n

The Bay City squad downed Carling Black Label of Saginaw in the district and Ned\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Tires of Midland in the regional to qualify for the eight-team Class B state final in Scottville over Labor Day weekend. With three straight wins, Roma\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s reached the title game unbeaten in the double-elimination event.<\/p>\n

And when Townsend blasted a home run and Urban fired a one-hit shutout in a 4-0 win over Alpena\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Smith Funeral Home \u00e2\u20ac\u201d the Class A runner-up from 1969 \u00e2\u20ac\u201d Roma\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s ruled the day.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153There were probably teams much more favored to win than us,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Stewart said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153But when you get on a roll and win some big ballgames, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s amazing what you can do.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Townsend hit two home runs in the state tournament and Weller added a three-run blast in the third game. Seidenstucker, Rickle and Urban shared the pitching duties throughout the tourney as Roma\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Inn brought home a grand prize for super sponsor Sal Gulino.<\/p>\n

The state championship trophy stood as a highlight from the heyday of fastpitch softball. The game once thrived in the area as Urban governed 70 teams as president of the Bay County Softball Organization in the \u00e2\u20ac\u02dc70s.<\/p>\n

And it took total commitment from the players, who were off virtually every weekend to compete in tournaments in Ludington, Petoskey or Traverse City.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153If there were nine guys on the field, eight were going through a divorce,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Urban, now 73. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Softball was blood and guts for all of us back then. It was a helluva game, and it was in my blood.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Four members \u00e2\u20ac\u201d Townsend, Stewart, Zacharko and Urban \u00e2\u20ac\u201d went on to play for the Arrow TV team that captured the Class A state title in 1978 and earned induction in the Hall of Fame in 2004. Some would leave for powerhouse teams like Midland McArdle Pontiac or the Saginaw Bolters, but all would forever share the bond that was built with Roma\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Inn.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s an era I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll never forget,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Urban.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(click logo for original news story) 1970 Roma’s Inn softball team that won the Class B fastpitch state championship. By Lee Thompson There was a time when fastpitch softball ruled. And Roma\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Inn was king. The 1970 Roma\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Inn team brought together a bunch of ballplayers in their prime, loving life and living for the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1,11],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/morningbrief\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3726"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/morningbrief\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/morningbrief\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/morningbrief\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/morningbrief\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3726"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/morningbrief\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3726\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/morningbrief\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/morningbrief\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/morningbrief\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}