Hello Fastpitch aficionados,
It’s getting warmer! Just 6 days to the first day of WIAA softball season!
The past couple of bulletins featured some stories about bygone days in WIAA softball. Here is the third one in a three-part series. You will be able to figure out who it is from as you read it.
I Love it Bob!
I was at the infamous David vs. Goliath game in 1998! I sure don’t miss that Saratoga complex!
That will make for a great bulletin for people to read and start getting the juices flowing for the up and coming season! You have some of the best stories. Maybe because you've been coaching for 40 years!
I haven't missed a varsity softball game here in Pepin whether it be the last 15 years coaching or just as a fan before that. Since 1993 when I started chasing my future wife around! ( She pitched for Pepin).
I have seen some changes but not even close to the changes that you have seen over the last four decades! When you put some of the things that have changed in that time in some of your bulletins I can just picture the look on some of the young coaches faces that are only in their 20's that don't even know that the ball used to be white!
I love reading all your bulletins! In the mid 1990's there was a group of us guys that were quite the roadies when it came to Pepin softball, one of them also being Petie. I can't even begin to imagine how many beers we used to drink at all the softball games. Every spring Jim would have his two tournaments, one in April and one in May. We would set up camp outside the right field, fence parked on the street and turn that hundred foot stretch of grass just behind the fence into a tailgate party that would rival opening day at County Stadium! We grilled out all day long and had a huge crowd out there for every tournament! Heck, in the mid 1990's the cops would even stop by and talk to us and never cared that about what we were doing. Oh how times have changed).
I remember after one of those tournaments we had actually darn near filled up the back of my truck with empty cans! Jim even made us a big sign that had and overweight cartoon looking guy sitting on the bleachers and the sign that said: "Laker Bleacher Bums". It was awesome! I wish I knew where that sign was today. We hung it on the fence all the time!
M.B.
Keep it Rising!
Bob
