Having a ball in softball cities

Tony Altobelli

NEWPORT-MESA -- Whether it’s once a year or four times a week,

competitive or just for fun, guys, gals, or both, Newport Beach and Costa

Mesa slow-pitch softball leagues have something to offer for just about

every Mark McGwire or Sammy Sosa wannabe in the area.

“It’s fun,” said longtime player Barbara Perry, who plans to play on as

many as four teams this summer. “I think most of us out here play for the

fun of the whole thing. I like the people I play with and it’s something

I’ve always enjoyed.”

Perry, a former Newport Harbor High School softball standout, played on

some struggling Sailors teams in the early 1980s.

“Playing for as long as I did on some pretty bad teams, I realized that I

really loved playing the game,” Perry said. “Of course, we want to win

and I’ve been on some pretty good teams as of late. But if we lose, it’s

no biggie. It’s not big bucks out here, just a T-shirt or a trophy.”

The majority of the players have the same attitude as Perry, but there

are some that try to relive past glory days and truly play to win at all

costs, which can lead to sporadic problems.

“It doesn’t happen often, but there can be some intense moments out

there,” said Scott Payne, the assistant supervisor of the Costa Mesa

Softball League. “Ideally, people should not take it quite so seriously,

but everyone’s different out there.”

Even with egos in check, perhaps the one unavoidable factor, as with all

sports, would be injuries.

“It’s tough when there’s a team with a wide range of skilled players,”

Payne said. “Accidents occur when players who haven’t played in a while

try to do too much, or in the coed leagues, first-time players may have

trouble catching hard-hit shots at them.”

Now, with a variety of levels for all leagues, the number of injuries

have decreased while the level of fun keeps going up.

Area softball has been around longer than some of the current players

have been alive. Fast-pitch softball was the sport of choice for years.

But pitching ran out, and in fast-pitch softball, that means the sport

thinned down quickly.

That’s when the slow-pitch explosion took place.

This summer, each league will have more than 100 teams competing on

various levels in men’s, women’s and coed leagues.

“The levels of play are all different,” Payne said. “There really is a

broad spectrum of teams out there,” Payne said. “Some are local

businesses that get a group of co-workers together, some are friends that

perhaps played sports in high school or college together, it just depends

what team you see.”

There are also some teams that have withstood the test of time, like the

“Bone-A’s” of the Newport Beach league.

Started in 1977, this group of guys is kicking off its 24th year of

summer softball.

“We said we’d go for 25 years, then hang ‘em up,” Bone-A’s coach Jake

Klohs said. “But now that we’re almost there, I think we’ll keep playing.

It’s a lot of fun.”

Klohs and his group of players all grew up in the area and have been

playing since their younger days.

“We grew up playing baseball in the harbor area and we played together in

high school.” Klohs said. “We started with 13 original Bone-A’s players

and this year we still have six of the original players still on the

team. The others have moved away, but we still keep in touch and they

always want to know how the team is doing.”

So what’s the team’s reason for continuing this 24-year tradition of

unity and cohesiveness?

“Basically, it’s just a great excuse to get together for 10 Wednesday

nights out of the year, catch up on old times, play some ball, have fun,

hit a pub for congratulatory beers and food, talk about the families and

then go home to bed,” Klohs said. “Now we play in the twilight league

(6:15 p.m.) because we can’t stay up as late as we used to.”