C-J Softball

The Citizen-Journal had a softball team for some of the years while I was there, and, of course, I played on it.

Usually, companies have teams for their employees so they can build company morale and cooperation. I'm not sure the C-J accomplished that goal, but we had some memorable times.

In the early years of my C-J teams Mark Strickland and Verne Hargrave were still in the mailroom. Jerry Hyde was our Advertising Director or Sales Manager, and I was just a staff accountant that handled various different roles. As a softball team, we weren't very good and I'm sure we lost more than we won. Most of the time, the players still had a good time.

A prime example of our ineptness occured in a game at Randol Mill Park. We had one out and men on first and second. Tommy Eller was on second and Victor Garza was on first. The batter hit a line drive into left-center field. For some reason Tommy held up on the play to see if the ball was going to be caught but Victor was running from the moment the ball was hit. The hitter should have gotten an easy double. OK, the stage is set. Are you ready for what happened then?

The outfielder fielded the ball off the fence and quickly threw into the cutoff man. The cutoff man fired it to the catcher. Eller, who didn't get a good break on the play, is being waved around third by the coach. He slides into home and is tagged out on a close play by the catcher. A second or two later the catcher tags Victor out as he too is sliding into home. A double play by the catcher at home plate to end the inning. I had never seen that happen before in my life and have never seen it since. Only the C-J could have done it.

The other memorable evening involved Mark Strickland and Jerry Hyde. Strick has always been a loudmouth and very intense in sports games. As usual, he was shouting encouragement, comments, etc. He was also only about 20 years old and still small, about 5-7 150 pounds. He wasn't being negative, just loud. Jerry was a about 6-2 240 pounds. Although he was a member of First Baptist, he did not follow the no alcoholic beverage teachings. Also, Jerry was a mean drunk. He'd had quite a few beers before the game and was getting really upset with Strick and told him to shut up. Jerry was in the dugout. At Randol Mill the dugouts were fence in and the "ceilings" were only about 5 feet tall, so you had to bend over to walk through them. Strick was on deck getting ready to bat. Jerry told Mark to shut up and Mark said no. All of a sudden Jerry was in a rage and going to tear Strick limb from limb. As Jerry was storming through the dugout I stopped him with a shoulder into his chest. Strick went flying down the right field line and junped the fence with astonishing speed. I couldn't believe he cleared out so quickly. The umpire threatened to make us forfeit the game if we couldn't control our players. That too was a first, it was the first time I'd almost seen a team forfeit a game because their own players were angry with one another. Strick never came back to the field and went home. After he calmed down, Jerry went home, too.

About the time I was moving over to WBAP the C-J had a team again. The coach was the Sports Director and he also played 3B. I played shortstop. We were winning by 1 run and the bases were loaded with 2 out. We were in the field. A bouncer was hit just to the left of the third basemen and the bounce went under his glove. I had a really good break on the ball and back-handed it in the outfield grass, planted my right foot (about 6' from the foul line), and looked to throw the guy out at third. I remember being somewhat suspended in time on my right leg, trying to gain enough balance to make a throw. I was also waiting for the 3b to see that I'd made the play and get back over and cover the base. As I saw him move back to the base, I threw the ball and then fell as my momentum carried me over. We got the force out to win the game!

It was a great play! It was also a lucky play, but one I will always remember.