Had my son-in-law Eddie Edwards not gotten involved in church softball the past three years, I might never have become aware it had gone the slow-pitch route.
Eddie is starting to get a little age on him now, but he still can get a bat on those high blooper pitches the slow-pitch game is famous for. When I was watching Sunday school teams play in my younger years, it wasn’t nearly so easy; fast-pitch softball is much more a younger man’s game.
Shadyside Park was the place to be in the 1950s if you liked softball. Church teams played a couple of times a week and Industrial or Commercial League teams the other nights. Anderson Daily Bulletin sports editor Fred Casady was one of the officers of the Anderson Softball Association and was the official scorer at every game until his death in the late 1950s.
Sunday school league teams sometimes got less attention than the Commercial League teams, which could recruit the best players available. Such outstanding pitchers as Carl McNulty, Ray Bird and Mayo Sauerwein left many a batter shaking his head after whiffing at three pitches in a row.
But the Sunday school leagues had a few marquee players of their own. In particular, North Anderson and Park Place Churches of God were dominant during that time period behind the sinker-ball pitches of North Anderson’s Hal Wood and the rise balls of Park Place’s Chuck Loewen. And East Side Church of God made it three during the years Ron Patty was on the mound.
Christ Lutheran, Mounds Baptist and Whetstone Christian were other dominant teams during that era. Christ Lutheran’s pitcher was Ed Fox, a grandfather of Jake Fox, who is now playing major league baseball with the Chicago Cubs.
Park Place was the first Sunday school team to win the city tourney in 1952. Chuck Humes was on the mound for Park Place against favored Emge in a semifinal match-up, and he outdueled Emge’s towering Ernie Ross in an 11-inning thriller.
Any records I may have had from my sportswriting days are long gone. But my memory is good enough to recall when all the church teams played in one league. That made for some lopsided games when the haves played the have-nots. Eventually “A” and “B” leagues were formed and later a “C” league was added. That not only enabled teams to match up with opponents of similar talent but provided an avenue for larger programs such as North Anderson and South Meridian Churches of God to field more than one team.
Shadyside no longer is the center for softball in Anderson. And fast-pitch softball is pretty much relegated to a few travel teams. But the city’s rich history of the game lives on in the minds of those who played and watched those games a couple of generations ago.
Jim Bailey’s reflections on Anderson’s past appear on Sunday. His regular column appears on Wednesday. He can be reached by e-mail at jameshenrybailey @earthlink.net.
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