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Softball Mon Jul 21 2008
Chicago Softball Gets a 'Hall'
You can usually tell the hardcore players by looking at their hands. There’ll be at least one or two knuckles (maybe more) that are a bit gnarled and misshapen, pointed at slightly odd angles, perhaps larger that the ones next to it. The guy who possess those hands will usually be at least 40 or older.
Those are the hands of a softball player, a 16-inch softball player to be exact. A glove has never covered those paws, hence the self-inflicted deformities generated by a regulation-sized Clincher taking a bad hop or coming off of a bat and screaming down the third base line.
The 16-inch softball. It’s one of those weird only-in-Chicago products, alongside the Twinkie, the Ferris wheel and the pinball machine that probably couldn’t have been invented anywhere else. Atlanta? Los Angeles? Houston? Nah, inventing a game that was intended to be played bare-handed sort of screams Chicago. So for about 120 years, that’s the way it was played in parks and back yards all over the city, leaving a trail of banged-up fingers in its wake. On men and women.
Of course, it’s mutated a bit now. The game left town and when it returned, the ball had shrunk to 12 inches and players started wearing mitts. Blasphemy, maybe, but there are still those who stick to the basics: ball, bat, bare hands, underhand pitching. Oh, and beer. Lots of beer.
Now those stalwarts have a hall of fame all their own. Plans have been finalized for a 16-inch Softball Hall of Fame in Forest Park, Ill. Organizers unveiled renderings for the facility over the weekend. They are still soliciting donations to construct the Hall and an adjacent softball field. Their goal is to keep the 16-inch game alive in the face of a myriad of new diversions.
When the Hall finally does open, no doubt there will be thousands of people hosting a beer in its honor … and toasting with gnarled fingers.
