{"id":28206,"date":"2015-07-27T10:03:29","date_gmt":"2015-07-27T17:03:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/?p=28206"},"modified":"2015-07-27T10:04:16","modified_gmt":"2015-07-27T17:04:16","slug":"no-matter-age-these-men-keep-coming-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/?p=28206","title":{"rendered":"No matter age, these men keep coming back"},"content":{"rendered":"

From the Herald & Review Sports<\/a>
\n
\nMARK TUPPER H&R Executive Sports Editor<\/em><\/p>\n

FORSYTH —
\nI\u2019ve known men\u2019s fastpitch softball players who dumped their jobs, dumped their dreams and dumped their wives. But as the years move by, I\u2019ve noticed for many, many of them it\u2019s almost impossible to break up with softball.<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m not sure what it is about throwing and hitting the 12-inch ball, but there must be some kind of intergalactic gravitational force that keeps pulling men age 50, 55, 60, 65 and older back to a game that they should have walked away from 20 or 30 years ago.<\/p>\n

What else might explain the gathering of graying men who have assembled this weekend in Forsyth for the Amateur Softball Association Men\u2019s Over 50 Fast Pitch National Tournament?<\/p>\n

Once upon a time these were young, agile athletes transitioning from baseball to fastpitch, 20-something studs who never thought to listen for snaps, crackles and pops when they ran to first base.<\/p>\n

They had their day in the sun, their shot at glory, but decades after most sane softball players have hung their spikes in the basement, they\u2019re still at it.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t entirely understand it, but I admire them nonetheless. A visit to Forsyth Saturday afternoon reminded me what a national tournament feels like.<\/p>\n

For openers, it\u2019s hot. Mid-day games are played in the beating sun and while a 27-year-old can handle that pretty easily, it\u2019s more to ask of an infielder who is closing in on 60.<\/p>\n

I tried to reason it out with a veteran umpire, Decatur\u2019s Jim Pownall, who had a rough job to perform on Saturday. \u201cYeah, I have flip a few coins,\u201d said Pownall, now 76.<\/p>\n

Pownall umpired for 40 years (not counting the four games he did as a fill-in last year) and worked 10 ASA major national tournaments (men\u2019s and women\u2019s) and five International Softball Congress World Tournaments.<\/p>\n

He scanned the two fields being used Saturday and said there\u2019s one major reason veteran players can\u2019t stop coming back for more. \u201cIt\u2019s the love of the game,\u201d Pownall said, and then added that the friendships made over decades are a spellbinding component that is not easily shoved aside.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese guys love each other. You see them giving each other hugs,\u201d Pownall said.<\/p>\n

Indeed, long-standing friendships seem to withstand the test of time, even if those players were once bitter rivals.<\/p>\n

Rick Minton and David Boys were occasional teammates back in their glory days with Decatur ADM and the Decatur Pride. They also were enemies chasing the same championships for competing teams.<\/p>\n

But Saturday morning, when second baseman Minton shoveled a double-play feed to smooth moving shortstop Boys, the choreography was magic, and the knowledge that they can still pull off a play like that must be wonderful.<\/p>\n

Same as it was for Moffett, the 66-year-old, when he delivered a big hit for the Cerro Gordo Clarkson Grain Legends.<\/p>\n

Jeff Findley, who played for a variety of teams including the Bloomington Hearts from 1991 to 1995, is one who stays involved in softball but not on the playing field. His reasoning makes sense to me.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just thought that my body wouldn\u2019t do the things that my mind thinks it should do,\u201d he said. \u201cI look at these guys and think if it were me, I\u2019d blow out my Achilles or something like that. But they all still love the game.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another Bloomington veteran, Jeff Collins, and Andy Taylor, the son of former Decatur manager\/general manager Frank \u201cPops\u201d Taylor, administer a Facebook site called \u201cThose Were the Days,\u201d which has a large following of former softball players who trade tales and keep up with past players. Click here to continue reading at the Herald Review Sports.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From the Herald & Review Sports MARK TUPPER H&R Executive Sports Editor FORSYTH — I\u2019ve known men\u2019s fastpitch softball players who dumped their jobs, dumped their dreams and dumped their wives. But as the years move by, I\u2019ve noticed for many, many of them it\u2019s almost impossible to break up with softball. I\u2019m not sure […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8,14],"tags":[210],"class_list":{"0":"post-28206","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-general","7":"category-masters","8":"tag-mensfastball","9":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28206"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28206\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28208,"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28206\/revisions\/28208"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}