I like to play slow-pitch softball on Monday nights in the spring and summer months.
From 1977-79, I played seventh and eighth grade basketball for Dan Andrae, the only man I call “Coach”.
Andrae founded the Tigers softball team and has managed the team since 1976. My dad played for the Tigers and I would go to watch him and keep score, carefully penciling in the boxes in Coach’s spiral-bound scorebook. In 1980, I was only 15 years old when only eight guys showed up on that Monday night. “Jakubowski, go play right field”, bellowed the Coach.
It was rare then to see a ball clear the fence; only the biggest and most powerful players could do it by generating power with perfect timing and great mechanics.
I have played for Coach on Monday nights for 31 years now, from wood bats to aluminum bats to carbon bats to exotic composite material bats. In a forgettable game the other Monday night, the Tigers went down 19-2 to a team that loves to hit home runs. Earlier in the season the Tigers and our pitcher Greg Ganas endured a 20-plus run defeat featuring at least 10 shots over the fence by the team that loves to hit home runs.
My unenviable task for the rematch on this Monday night was to take the mound and pitch for the Tigers. Coach Andrae had some advice for me before the game, “we need you to try to keep the ball in the park, Mike.” There aren't many things a pitcher can do in the slow-pitch game to meet that goal given the desire of the offensive player and the chemistry involved with the hitting implements.
It was not a great game to play or to watch being played, one team getting mauled and the other circling the bases regularly with no real effort. How fun was it on the other side? No strategy, no base running, only which guy can jack the ball over the fence the farthest seemed to matter. Is that really why we play the game now?
The league decided to play with a less lively ball a few seasons ago, but the bat manufacturers and the home run hitters found a way around that and the ball flies even faster and farther now than it did before. Big guys, small guys, great mechanics, no mechanics, some just get a running start in the batter’s box and aim up the middle. Not good news for a pitcher 46 or so feet away from the batter.
If we went back to wood bats and didn’t do anything to the ball, the game would be much more fun to watch and much more fun to play. Singles and doubles would matter again, off center swats would be ground balls or pop flies instead of gappers or home runs. Good pitching, timely hitting and tight defense would settle ball games, not a tape measure.
Not many slow-pitch softball leagues around here use wood bats, if any exist. Would you like to hear some howling? Try to take the bats away.
I like to bowl on Monday nights in the fall and winter months…