A few years ago, there were three co-ed softball leagues of varying degrees of competition playing three nights a week on the diamond at Bayview Park. Then the last several years, there has been but one league of six or eight teams. Now, there is none. Zero. Co-ed softball is no longer.
Men still have their Men’s Softball League and the Over-35 League – which was the Over-40 League just a few seasons ago, but participation in that also has gone down, down, down over the years.
So without the co-ed league, which played two seasons a year, women have no softball or other sport leagues as far as I know. And that’s too bad. Men and younger players also have basketball leagues at the Frederick Douglass Gym.
The Co-ed Softball League played five men and five women on a team at each game. Teams had to have 10 players, but preferred to have as many as 14, said a friend who managed the Laid Back Charters team, which won the league championship last year. The team had previously been called Fun in the Sun. In the championship year, he lost three of his 14 players; two players moved during the season and a third injured an ankle.
My friend told me insurance was the problem that shut down the league. It had been combined for the three softball leagues before this year, but the co-ed league was told this year it had to go it alone. In the past, insurance cost $400, but was going to jump to $700 per team.
Another problem was that no one stepped up to run the league. “They asked me and I wouldn’t do it,” said J.W. Cooke, who said Bob Maun, Fats Yaniz and Tony Mendez had been the leaders of the softball programs through the years. In a few years past, sponsors picked up the bills for insurance, balls, the lights and other needs.
Without sponsors, said Laid Back Charters player Lisa Sacco, “One year we had to pay $40 or $45 each.” But with sponsors, the players played for free.
It seems inflation has hit every area and caused problems.
Let’s hope inflation has nothing to do with the imprisonment of pro-basketball player
Brittney Griner in Russia. Boxer Roy Jones, who has dual citizenship between the United States and Russia, says he has powerful friends in both countries whom he can convince to free Griner. This probably just shows how widely the subject of her imprisonment has grown. I doubt Jones has that much power, but President Joe Biden does. It’s time. If a trade of prisoners is the answer, then behind the scenes, President Biden or his representative needs to enact the trade before this gets totally out of hand. Bring Brittany Griner home.
