Hardcore Softball It’s Tourney Time, And Rec League Excitement Gets Intense
The regular season was over. This was it.
Anywhere there was a dusty diamond in the Valley, there were Spokane County recreational league softball players. Tournament Saturday had arrived.
The nine weeks of ball preceding this one were just practice - those records don’t count toward final standings. All that mattered was how a team finished in the tourney.
The pressure to perform like a major leaguer was now placed on the backs of bartenders, accountants and truck drivers.
East Valley Middle School experienced some of the heaviest cleat traffic. The school has seven diamonds, and they were in use hosting games from 8 a.m. until past 6 p.m.
“Thatawaythatawaythataway!” shouted a mustachioed guy wearing round, John Lennon-style specs. His team, sporting jerseys bearing the label “Big Willie,” was beating the pants off of the squad fielded by Sutherland Motors.
It turned out Big Willie is the call sign for the Air National Guard’s 105th Tac Control Squadron. They run a radar outpost at Four Lakes.
Their mission now, though, had nothing to do with radar. It had everything to do with making life rough on the guys wearing the Mercedes-Benz logos.
“I ain’t over ‘till it’s O-o-ver!” John Lennon shouted at his fellow Willies. “Do we want this win? Do we want it?!?”
Meanwhile, a crowd of guys in blue shirts had formed. It was the folks from City Parcel. They played two games already, but opponent No. 3 didn’t show. Cabbies, they said.
They wanted to size up the competition - they hadn’t tangled with Big Willie yet.
“It’s serious,” Dave Leslie Jr. said. “It’s a rivalry thing, our business against yours.”
It would have to be serious stuff for most folks to spend their 26th birthday in the sun on a dusty ball field like he was doing.
Dave Jr. was in the company of family, though. His brother Scott was there, and so was Dave Sr.
“Dad can still show the boys how to play ball,” coach Dave Apperson said of Dave Sr. “He’s one of our best players.”
There was no word on just how old Dave Sr. was, though. “As old as that beat-up mitt he uses,” Apperson claimed.
Sure, some players got a little too enthusiastic. (“All men, the women don’t mind” one observer claimed.) But, Apperson said it’s all for a good cause.
“Transportation is a tough business,” he said. “It’s hard work. Softball gives them something to talk about, that’s why we do it. It keeps up morale.”
On another diamond, the “A/1” team wasn’t too worried about morale. They weren’t sponsored by a steak sauce company, or any other business. They’re a group of friends that got together just to crack bats for the fun of it.
“If we win, we win. If not, that’s OK,” team member Ron White said. “We have beer and pizza afterward either way.”
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