My Softball "Career"

To play professional baseball was my childhood dream. I played baseball constantly. I played LL Baseball, school "softball", PE "softball", summer whiffleball, and I spent hours throwing a tennis ball against our brick fence and creating plays with the rebound to throw out the runner. When I wasn't playing outside, I played inside with an magnet/electric baseball game. I played that game for hours, I kept a scorebook and stats of all the games played. And when I wasn't playing outside or inside, I was watching the games on TV (of course this was during baseball season only). I was a baseball "fanatic".
When my baseball dreams were crushed with my ASU experience, I got hooked on "softball".
It all started with the 18th Ward team. I played with the 18th Ward starting the summer of 1968. We had a really good team, but we didn't make it out of the valley. With our final defeat, preparations began for the next year. The next year (1969) we were beat by Mesa 22nd Ward, who went on to All Church in Salt Lake City. By now, we had grown much wiser and hungrier to get to SLC. We played 2 nights a week in the fall, 2 nights a week in the winter, and 4 nights a week in the summer (city league and church league). We recruited some non-members to move into the ward to beef up our team.
Larry Nelson (who worked for APS, and was in a fairly high position), built a softball field for the stake, just about single handedly. He got all the materials (fencing, light poles, equipment to grade the field, sprinklers, etc. donated. He tore down the old backstop, graded the field, had the lights and backstop erected. It was beautiful. Our pride and joy as we (the Scottsdale Stake hosted the regional tourneys, besides our Stake play and tourney.
That year (1970) we played Mesa 22nd for the chance to go to All Church. It was on a Saturday night, we were ahead going into the last inning, and we got dusted and rained out. So we had to suffer through Sunday and Monday awaiting the outcome. We had to finish on a Monday night, and we ended up winning. So on to SLC. We caravaned up, stayed in motels, toured Temple Square (my first time), and had a great time. We played our first game against a team from Marietta, GA. They were all huge, but they were really exhausted from the 20 some odd hour drive to make it to SLC. We beat them 3-2. They went on after that and killed everyone and won the tourney.
Our work was cut out for us. We played in leagues again in the fall, the winter, the spring, and summer (church and city). We beat Mesa 22nd again to qualify for SLC (1971). In SLC, we got beat by one run to get knocked out of the tourney. I made the last out with tying run at third, and the winning run on first. A big disappointment, it took me months to get over it. (It was just softball !!!!!) Of a more eternal note, Darrell and Wanda had joined the Church, moved into 18th Ward, and Darrell played on the team. They went thru the Salt Lake Temple for their endowments. So we all had a spiritual experience despite from "softball mania".
The next year I moved to Mesa (our first house). We were in Alma 3rd Ward. I didn't get on the Alma 3rd city team (Cardon Oilers) because I was playing with Berge Mazda (Triple A League), but I did play in the Church Tournament with them. We didn't get too far. The next year I played city ball with the Church guys, played on a Kerr sponsored team, and played Church ball. We ended up qualifying to go to Prescott. All Church was disbanded because of the cost and distance teams were traveling to get there and be there for the entire week. We blew everyone out in our round robin, including my old team Phoenix 18th. We then played Mesa 24th Ward in the semi's (Ned Brimley's team -- Crazy Sub Ned). We were down 7 to 4 in the bottom of the 7th. Our first 2 guys made outs. I was up, I got a base hit. Our next guy hit an HR. Next guy doubled, then a single, then a double, and we won the game. We played Phoenix 10th the next night, and won. We were Prescott Champs. We were the talk of Church softball for the next year.
I must say at this point, I did have a money earning job (Kerr's), a church calling as a Stake Missionary, and a family. As I look back, the family probably suffered the most from my obsession with softball.
I played fall/winter ball with a Kerr team, and summer ball with Church team and Cardon sponsored team. And any other teams that needed a player. There were no restrictions back then, but that changed in the next year or so. Our ward had guys trying to move in to be with a "championship" team. We had so many, we had to have tryouts for the A team and B team. It was too crazy. What was worse was I was coaching the team, and having make the decisions on who played and who didn't. This is Church ball, not "professional". We made it to Prescott that summer, and made it thru our round robin. We played Phoenix 33rd in the semi's. We were ahead 12 to 8 going into the bottom of the 7th. They scored 5 runs and beat us. We were devastated. We were so cocky, and got what we deserved.
The next year our ward split and we were never contenders again. I continued to play 4 nights a week on city sponsor teams and church teams. We moved to Alma 1st Ward and softball came to an end (or at least less involved, maybe I was "growing up") as I started throwing newspapers.
I played less and less. In Gilbert, I played with Gilbert 2nd and then with Elliot Ward. In Gilbet we played at Barney Park. Steele and Luke played on one diamond and Jeremy and I on the another. We spent many a night playing softball together as the rest of the family watched from the bleachers. One night as I was playing third base, I tried to impress everyone by chasing a pop fly to the fence next to the dugout. I hit the fence/brick wall, and missed the ball. I went back to my position, and my knee kind of hurt. My sweats were a little damp, like I scraped my knee. But I never checked it out. When I got home an hour or so later, I took off my sweats, and there was dried blood and a gash in my knee. I hadn't fainted back on the field because I never knew I was bleeding. So Mignon made me go to the ER, and I got 5 stitches. I was getting too old.
Moving back to Mesa, my softball career was rejuvinated in Riverview Ward with Bishop Dale. He was older than me and still playing, so why couldn't I??? Age had taken it's toll though. The game really wasn't fun anymore. One night as were playing the 54th ward, I was catching and went up the 3rd base line to catch a throw to the plate and the guy running home (who didn't have a clue what he was doing) hit me head on and knocked me over and over. I was okay, just a little shaken up. But realized that it is "just a game", and I didn't belong out there still trying to prove something. And besides, I could have gotten hurt worse than a fractured finger, two black eyes from ground balls to the face, a full speed collision with our left fielder (that broke his arm), a cut knee with stitches, and a collision with a runner that just about knocked me silly (or maybe it did).

OH, I just remembered the time we were playing legion ball in Mesa at Westwood field one summer (high school). We were all psyched out because we had heard there were pro scouts in the stands to see Jay Ray Roakey (super player from the 67 Westwood team, who bytheway Mignon knew very well). In pregame warmups I take a ground ball to the face, and my eye swells up and I have to sit out the game. So I miss my big chance to be spotted and potentially drafted to the Milwaukee Braves. "Baseball/Softball been bery good to me!!!!! "