Coed kind of fun

Terry Best, who owns O’Doherty’s Irish Pub, is frequently asked to sponsor softball teams. He sponsors two, but turns down a lot more.

“I get asked all the time, but I only sponsor teams when it’s my own customers forming a team,” he said. “I’m a small business; I can’t afford to sponsor a lot of teams. So when I do, I want it to be for people who come in and eat here.”

When you think about it, softball is one of the most subdivided of all team sports. It’s divided into both a men’s and women’s game, which are then divided into fast-pitch, slow-pitch and modified fast-pitch.

If that weren’t enough, it branches off into coed softball – a game that requires subdivided equipment. To accommodate both sexes, umpires are required to use different balls, depending on the batter’s gender: bigger, restricted-flight balls for men, smaller balls for women.

Men and women alternate in the batting order; as the game progresses, outfielders will almost wear a patch through the grass as they move in and out, depending on whether a man or woman is batting.

Yes, men and women actually play together on the same team. Office teams frequently play the game sometimes referred to as Jack and Jill, but when teams collect players for a league, they tend to draw from their own social circle.

At a coed softball game you’re likely to find youngsters playing in the dugout and strollers parked next to the team bench. And you’re likely to find couples.

“I think when you go down our roster, the common denominator is me,” said Brock Salzman, who manages one of the two O’Doherty’s teams. “We have a few people who came in together, but with most of the players on the roster, I’ve brought them in.”

Where some of the most competitive coed teams will have 14 players, Salzman has more than 20.

“It works better this way,” he explained. “I have a lot of players who can’t always be there every game. They have weddings to go to or they take a vacation during the summer, things like that. This year I think we were about right with the number of players. We had different people week to week, but we always had enough players to be able to play.

“I know I’m supposed to be a coach, but there really isn’t that much coaching involved. I put together a lineup, and I like to rotate that around so no one has to hit last every time.”

Coed softball teams have similarities, Best said. Players tend to be professional types, for one thing.

“The teams I’ve sponsored have quite a few school teachers,” he said.

“One of the things I’ve noticed is that the people who play coed softball tend to be right around the same age,” Best said. “On a men’s team, even a team of older players will generally have a couple 20-year-old players on it. You don’t see that with coed teams.

“What I see are teams that almost always go out together after the game. My teams almost always come in for dinner.”

Best has even noted a difference in what coed teams typically drink when they socialize.

“Men’s teams typically come in and drink beer by the pitcher,” he said. “They may order some French fries or something like that, but mostly they drink beer.

“Coed teams will drink beer, too, but they drink less of it and they drink a better quality beer. They order more microbrews.”

And since there are frequently kids involved, the teams subdivide.

“I see that,” Best said. “The players with kids head to the restaurant side and have dinner; the single players usually come into the pub and have a beer and eat there.”

The big point, Best and Sulzman agree, is to have fun.

“The thing I like about it is that I have a group of the nicest people in the world who like to get together on Friday nights and have fun together,” Sulzman said. “For my team, it looks like we’re all going to be back again next year, too.

“I’m looking forward to it.”