Eight and one-half months earlier, our 1982 fast-pitch softball season had ended in the kind of disaster coaches, managers and players dread — two beatings in four hours on the first day of competition, the dreary job of packing up gear, the long ride home (knowing you came nowhere near your state championship objective).
I’d begun coaching this team near the start of the state tourney round in early August, 1979. I’d returned to lower Michigan after seven years living at Chassell (in Upper Peninsula Copper Country), where I began coaching in the spring of ’75.
We won our District title in ’79, were runners-up in the Regionals. The next year, (’80) we won Districts, Regionals, and played in the state Class D Championship tourney at Cadillac with a win and two losses. Our ’81 season was satisfactory, and in Spring, ’82, we moved-up from Class D to Class B.
During the summer, we played a lot of good ball, beating many of the finest teams in Michigan, and, in one tournament, several excellent teams out of Canada as well. In August we solidly whipped an excellent class B team out of Lansing (in a three-team playoff) for the right to act as host team to the State Class B championship tournament.
I was pretty confident (actually expected a state title), given the fact we’d beaten many teams there during course of the summer. But the “boys of summer” acted like “boys,”hit all the bars in Lansing, came out of what little sleep they got still “half-in-the-bag” and lost two games faster than my mind could digest them. I still suffer a mental blockage regarding the whole of our tournament play there.
Two players did the right thing, stayed in, and as I walked back to the parking area with them, I told them, “Well, that’s it for me – next year, it’s a new team, or no team.”
We had strong league in Freeport — not a weak team in the league, including a youth team playing against the big boys, who played strong, and eventually beat one of the regular adult men’s league teams and won two consecutive state titles. Fast-pitch softball, in Freeport as in Chassell, was a local institution.
Sometime in late September of ’82, I sat down, wrote a letter I then sent to 14 players around the league I’d admired for attitude, ability, sportsmanship, reliability. To my amazement, almost every one responded (the last of them joined us the following year). I coached them for two years (’83/’84) before an employment opportunity I couldn’t refuse lured me to New England where (praise be to Intelligent Design), I found a fast-pitch league, and a team to run. But that’s another story, altogether.
We were a poor (impoverished) team. A local merchant purchased uniforms for us, but we were on our own for league, state and tournament fees. Somehow we managed… and grew.
As luck would have it, our first game (ever) of the ’83 season, was against the team I’d left at the end of the ’82 season (about May 15). There was a big crowd at the ball field that evening — most waiting for the “Clash of the Titans” at 8 p.m. The first game seemed to drag until, in the fifth inning our guys began a game of “pepper” (my long-standing habit) over near the parking lot.
Game one soon ended, and we gathered near our dugout, fidgeting and gabbling nervously as the field was dragged and relined. We were the “visitors” and as I moved to my coaching box along the first-base line, someone on the other team shouted, “Watch out for the bunt, guys, you know how Hummer likes to bunt.” Thinking to myself, “I’ll show you bunt,” I looked directly into the first batter’s eyes, and gave him the bunt sign. In fact, I gave the bunt sign to the first seven or eight players (something I’ve done many time over 36 years), and at the end of one we led 4-0.
After that, it was a ding-dong battle of great pitching, terrific defense and a slow, but steady comeback for the opposition (they were a very, very good team). At the end of the regulation seven innings, the score was tied, 7-7. The eighth and ninth innings were scoreless, with great defensive play by both teams. In the tenth, they put a man on base, worked him home, and beat us 8-7.
My players were, to say the least, disconsolate, and after shaking hands and sharing compliments, we started for the parking lot, a couple of cold beers, and a review of our performance.
“Geez,” a player said to me as I removed my cleats and jersey, and reached for a cold one,”I sure hated losing that game.”
“Well, nobody wanted it more than me,” I answered, “But look at it this way — we’re never going to have a team in this league take us lightly, they know what
a near thing it was, and so does everyone watching the game. I’m pleased with
the way we played and executed, and with the fright we gave them.”
I coached the team in ’83 and ’84, then moved East. Veteran (retired) Hastings pitcher Vern ‘Stub’ Allerding, whose two sons were both playing for us by ’84, took over as coach/manager in ’85, and took the club to the state finals two years running.
Later, back in Michigan and acting as District Commissioner at-large, I had the honor to nominate and secure Stub’s entry into the Michigan Amateur Softball Association Hall of Fame as a pitcher — the first member from Barry County. He was followed in the next year by former coach, player, umpire, and District Commissioner Don Bowers. It was the least I could do for Bowers, who loved the game, and gave it many years in many capacities, and from whom I’d stolen several very fine players.
I’m out of ball now, and the game has pretty much (but not completely) fallen on hard times (much of which has been brought on by the MASA management itself – but that’s another story). I think about ball all summer long. The heart is willing, but the body just doesn’t cooperate. It’s especially hard since cooperation and communication were my softball watchwords.
“PLAY BALL!” (Be still, my heart.)
