I recently came across an old stat sheet from my softball career, and what really caught my eye were the money games. Money games — I had just about forgotten about them. Possibly the high point in my Chicago softball career, 1955-1970, was one particular game that still brings a smile to my face.
Our team was the Vanguards. It was a mid-level, neighborhood team that played out of Lawndale Park, which was renamed Piotrowski Park in the early ’70s. We were in a decent league. Many of our players were previously on a team called the Hell’s Angels, which reached the pinnacle of Chicago softball.
We Vanguards had many of the Angels’ qualities: quick, opportunistic and better than the sum of our parts.
That particular Sunday, we had scheduled a doubleheader. The first game was basically a warmup for the marquee game against a South Side team we really knew nothing about. With the first game over and a couple hundred bucks added to our bank, we proceeded to relax and enjoy the picniclike atmosphere at the park.
In any sporting event I’ve ever been in, it didn’t take too long to figure out who should have the upper hand. As our opposition arrived, the confidence we showed against the earlier team began eroding. One good-looking athlete after another showed up.
But before that, our manager met with theirs to discuss the wager. Apparently, in an effort to employ some gamesmanship, our manager said, “We’ll cover whatever you want to bet.”
The reply: $2,000. I’m pretty sure any superior look on our manager’s face didn’t last, knowing we only had $1,500 or so in our bank, and never having bet even half that much on a game. Nevertheless it was agreed upon.
Our manager returned with a worried look on his face, barking out orders and confiscating half-empty beer cans. He told the team of our plight.
This was 1968. We players did not have $500 sitting around in our wallets. As we got loose and ready to play, some of our minions were dispatched to various places, mostly taverns, to try and make up our $500 shortfall. My own father-in-law ponied up 50 bucks, further ratcheting up the pressure on me.
The game started and our potential investors showed up to see what they were investing in. By a stroke of luck and a couple of bad hops, we jumped out to a nice lead and our investors got in on this sure thing.
It seemed that the instant we got the money, the softball gods said, “Not so fast.” For the rest of the game, it was one step forward, two steps back. The end was getting closer, but so were these guys. We learned that they had recently won a big, prestigious South Side tournament. If we had known this, we would not have touched these guys with a 10-foot pole.
Some grumbling was now heard from our investors. A sure thing was now 50-50. If the softball gods had not smiled upon us at five or six different junctures, we would have gone from our almost-hero status to a bunch of pariahs who choked and lost a bunch of the locals’ money.
We wound up winning 17-16, with the winning run on base as the game ended. It was the last high stakes game I ever played in. The team disbanded the next year and I found myself playing less and less, until it finally dwindled down to nothing.
It stayed that way until I was in my 50s. A shorthanded local team asked me to fill in on 12-inch ball. Since that day, it’s been the same kind of fun that I had as a younger person, with the added bonus being the many associations I’ve had with so many wonderful players and their families.
At a time of life when one’s social circle usually shrinks, mine has only gotten bigger.
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