Kings Of The Hill In Short Supply

Idaho softball

Control. Variety. Arc. Movement. Follow through. Defense. Patience. Desire.

Those are the qualities that elevate the good slowpitch softball pitcher.

Quality pitchers are at a premium in the Coeur d’Alene area.

Take Joe Benner, for instance. The 35-year-old fifth-grade teacher never goes wanting for a spot on the roster of the city’s top men’s or coed team.

Benner works the umpires, stretching the regulation 6- to 12-foot arc range to 5 and 14.

“As soon as the batter steps in the box, I’m looking at his feet to see where he’s standing,” Benner said. “Plus, I know my hitters. My objective is to get ahead of him. I always throw the first strike.”The thing that I do best is I have a good percentage of keeping the home run hitters in the park.”

Benner teases hitters, varying arc and pitch location.

Benner abandoned baseball at age 15 after getting hit too many times by pitchers. He figured in two years he’d be pitching adult slowpitch at his favorite playground, Memorial Field.

Fifteen years later, his most memorable moment is pitching the local Dan Barton team into the 1993 coed national championship game before a partisan hometown Memorial crowd.

“That was a really exciting time for me,” Benner said. “Getting all the support from the fans. I’m used to the fans not liking me.”

Jimmy Ehrmantraut, 42, threw his first pitch 15 years ago after the team’s regular pitcher didn’t show. Prior to the arc limit imposed 10 years ago, he threw 15- to 20-foot pitches.

Ehrmantraut’s sidespin pitch is his favorite. “It moves the ball,” he said. “To play on the better teams in the upper leagues, the pitcher has to be able to move the ball.”

Joe Lopez Sr., like Ehrmantraut, pitches for three teams. Lopez, 54, has developed five pitches during the past 18 years.

“If you’re just a one-pitch pitcher, they’ll catch on right away,” Lopez said. “There’s too many good hitters out there.”

The curveball is his favorite, but the knuckleball is also a stopper.

“I use that (knuckleball) on two strikes and one ball or two strikes and zero balls,” Lopez said. “They don’t expect it. When I throw it up there, it surprises them. They usually swing.”Follow through is key. “(Pitchers) don’t realize. Once they get tired, then they try to put (the ball) there, but really they’re not,” Lopez advised. “They’re pushing it. They’re not getting it into play.”

Park Singer, 32, is in his first full season pitching Quad Park’s upper league in Post Falls. His introduction came at the ASA men’s C national tournament last summer in Alabama.

In August, Singer returns to the national B tournament in Louisiana with Sports Cellar.

Singer flips pitches with a flat palm, holding onto the ball with three fingers.Pitching is far from easy.

“I’ve seen all the different kinds of guys - some flamboyant … reverse English … pitching from the side,” said Western Truck Brokers playercoach Kim Martin. “None of those things means anything to me. It’s the guy that makes me swing at pitches that I should have taken. It’s basically the pitch location.”

Tournaments

Sunday’s thunderstorm helped decide the B/C championship of the Coors Silver Bullet coed tournament at Quad. Whipped by wind, hail and rain, undefeated Champion Electric-Rima of Moscow was in extra innings deadlocked at 12 with Sullivan Scoreboard of Spokane.

By virtue of its perfect record, Champion Electric was declared the winner.

Parrott Electric won the if-necessary game, 6-5 over WR Logging in an all-Coeur d’Alene final in the major/A division.

The Spaghetti Station of Spokane took the Budweiser men’s C invitational title on Sunday at Ramsey Park in Coeur d’Alene.