These days, the popularity of softball is soaring higher than a towering home run. And in few places is that more apparent than in the Du Page area, where organized softball is being played not only by greater numbers but also by a wider range of adults than ever before.
While men’s teams are still the most common, women’s and coed squads are increasingly taking to the field. And in recent years, they’ve been joined by over-40 and over-50 teams made up of men who aren’t yet ready to hang up the spikes.
For proof of the sport’s growing popularity, one need look no farther than the emergence of meticulously groomed, highly equipped softball facilities throughout the area during the last few years.
Not so long ago, softball leagues were forced to stage their games wherever organizers could find a backstop. Playing fields were customarily weed-strewn diamonds where bad hops were the rule rather than the exception.
But in many suburbs today, the softball venues have taken on trappings more commonly associated with professional baseball parks.
For example, at the Naperville Park District, four of six diamonds are lighted for night games, most have bleachers and all are carefully tended by an experienced grounds crew.
The Wheaton Park District has seven different fields, three with lights, and the park district even furnishes scorekeepers.
Downers Grove’s McCollum Park has four lit fields, bleachers, a concession stand and a state-of-the-art automatic sprinkler system to keep the fields lush.
And in Elgin, where games as recently as seven years ago were scheduled at school fields, the Elgin Sports Complex boasts 10 lighted diamonds with home and visitor bleachers, concession stands and electronic scoreboards.
In each city, the new facilities have been continually improved to meet a surging demand for diamonds from the softball-mad populace.
“Softball is definitely growing,” said Jay Havenaar, softball coordinator with the Naperville Park District. “That’s especially true in our coed leagues, where we’ve seen phenomenal growth. We started the (coed) program about four years ago with just six teams playing one night a week. Now we have 24 teams in the summer playing on three different nights, and another eight in the fall.”
The story’s much the same in Wheaton, where park district supervisor Ed Rompa observed, “It’s really grown. You can see it in our 12-inch leagues for men. Two summers ago we had just 12 teams; now we have 23. Plus, we have two women’s leagues, three different leagues in men’s 16-inch, and next year I’m planning on starting a league for men over 30.”
Rompa is not only a softball supervisor but an avid player. Sometimes playing as many as 50 games a year in as many as three neighboring cities, he has witnessed first-hand the importance many players attach to the sport.
“Players take it a lot more seriously than many people think,” he said. “I’ve seen it go from, `Let’s go out and have a good time on a Sunday afternoon,’ to, `Let’s go out and win this thing at all costs.’
“The competitive leagues are the ones that are growing the fastest, and the competitive players play all the time,” he added. “I’ll see players and teams in my league, and then I’ll see them again in two other leagues I play in-one in West Chicago and another in Lombard.”
Not too far away, in Downers Grove, softball has also caught on in a major league way. There, 52 different teams (32 men’s 12-inch teams, 10 men’s 16-inch and 10 women’s 12-inch teams) take part in four different leagues.
But Tom Carstens, recreation center supervisor with the Downers Grove Park District, observes that his program could be even bigger. “If we had more space, we could field more teams,” he said. “But there’s not a lot of room to add more diamonds in Downers Grove; we’re pretty much landlocked here.”
As supervisor of the softball program in the suburb, Carstens also is called upon to make sure the program’s strict rules are observed. In the spring, he calls together the captains of both men’s and women’s leagues and reminds them to keep hot-headed behavior to a minimum during the season.
“I tell them to remember what this is,” he said. “I tell them it’s just softball; it’s not life and death. Life goes on the next day after your game.”
Then he lays down the law: “If you touch another player (in anger), you’re gone for the whole year. If you’re kicked out of a game, you’re automatically suspended for two more games. We’ve found we can limit the problems by strictly enforcing these rules.”
As in many other Du Page County towns, a growing number of players in Carstens’ Downers Grove leagues are women.
Typical is Mary Anne Smrz, 38. Smrz is president and founder of New Beginnings Creative Services Ltd., a graphic arts agency in Downers Grove. But many summer nights will find her roaming the outfield in the red and black colors of her team, sponsored by Pizza Hut.
Smrz said the part of softball she enjoys most is the camaraderie that carries over from the diamond to the postgame pizza and beer at the sponsor’s restaurant. “I’ve been playing with some of the same women ever since I was in high school,” said Smrz, who played her first softball at age 9 on Chicago’s Southwest Side. “I’ve made a lot of friends in that time. Not only is the game fun, but it’s a great way to meet people.”
Today, there may be as many as 30,000 to 35,000 women playing the game in the Chicago area, according to Amateur Softball Association Chicago Metro Commissioner Tom O’Neill of Tinley Park.
Elgin, another town where softball fever is at a high pitch, is one of the places where softball for older participants is growing. La Grange is another. La Grange has a league for men 39 and over, while Elgin’s is limited to men over 50.
Bud Wilson, 63, a self-employed manufacturer’s agent, is an outfielder and catcher for the Reds, one of five teams competing in Elgin’s Masters Softball League.
Wilson said that when the league started several years ago, league founders were hard-pressed to put together four teams for a six-game season. “Now we have five teams playing a 16-game season,” he said. “And we could easily have more teams. There are more guys showing up all the time.”
Like may of the other men in the league, Wilson began his softball career in his youth but had not played for many years. When several of his racquetball-playing friends decided there should be a softball league for older men, he knew it was time to come out of retirement.
Today, according to Wilson, the league is looking increasingly attractive to men in their 40s who have managed to hang on long after their prime in Elgin’s men’s leagues. “They’re biding their time until they hit 50 and can join us,” he said with a laugh.
In the Masters League, rules proscribing stealing and sliding are strictly enforced to minimize injuries, and the softball itself is especially designed for older players.
“They call it an RIF ball, which stands for reduced injury factor,” he said. “It responds well to the bat, but it also functions well as a shock absorber to reduce the chance of someone being injured.”
Wilson has a dozen years on the younger players in the league, but he is by no means the oldest. That distinction goes to Red Vaughan, a 75-year-old veteran from Elgin who pitches for the Blues.
“I’m a really streaky player myself, mostly a singles and doubles hitter,” Wilson said “But there are some guys in this league who can still really pound the ball.”
The fact that softball is growing so rapidly has come as no surprise to Bill Dwyer, an Oak Park resident who has published Chicago Metro Softball for three years. The nine-issues-per-year newspaper looks at every aspect of the game as played in Chicago and the suburbs.
“The biggest growth in the game is in 12-inch softball and leagues for older men,” he said. “But I also envision more and more women getting involved in 11- and 12-inch softball. They’re getting the experience at the high school level, and they want to continue.”
As a player himself, Dwyer can understand the lure: “In my opinion, softball is the most accessible adult sport. For a lot of people, it’s a direct channel back to their youth.”
