Slo-Pitch Softball - Dave’s Midwestern Ohio Memories

A Series of Guest Blogs by an out-of-state Fish Report reader originally from this area about fond memories of growing up in Midwestern Ohio during the 50’s & 60’s.

Slo-Pitch Softball

Summer meant lots of slo-pitch softball, starting as a kid playing with my younger sisters. The larger softball was much easier for them (and me) to hit than a baseball, plus safer. Besides, I could never hit a curve ball, so gave up baseball after pony league. We would play in the makeshift diamond on our farm described in last week’s blog. My glove back then was a Leo Durocher special pictured below. I had found it in a trash can at the high school baseball diamond. My plea for a new baseball glove for Christmas always seemed to go unanswered until the memorable Christmas described in this former blog posting.

During the summer’s in high school, I’d play softball in the Ft. Loramie Slo-Pitch Softball league for Middendorf Stockyards. Dad was a good customer of theirs, so their employees invited me to play for the team. The top team in the league was Brucken’s Barflies and they had a player on the team I considered then and now as the best slo-pitch softball player I have ever seen. His name is Ralph Fleckenstein, who is about 4 years older than me. He played just like Pete Rose; hitting line drives, playing a single into a double every time, sliding into second base headfirst in a cloud of dust. Plus he had power; hitting line shots between the outfielders for inside the park home runs, or when there were no fences, the ball would roll forever. He’d still run like a deer around the bases. Later, Ralph switched teams to Filburn’s Marina, who with him on their roster, became probably the best team in Ohio. Check out this Minster Post article from July, 1973 about Ralph’s exploits during a tournament against the best out-of-state teams in the midwest. During the tournament, Ralph had 3 doubles, 2 triples and 4 homers! Note in one the games he could have hit for the cycle, but remember, he never got singles; they were all automatic doubles. Ralph is number 23 below.

As Ralph got older, he became an excellent pitcher, using a scary tactic of charging right at the batter after releasing the looping pitch. That approach really unnerved most batters, but I wonder if he ever got nailed by a liner being that close to the batter? But since he was so quick, he could likely duck out of the way of any hit ball; or catch it! He also happened to be the best horseshoe player I had ever seen; hitting +60% ringers. He still throws horseshoes competitively as he remains a ranked player by the Ohio Horseshoe Pitchers Association.

Our Middendorf team wasn’t that good, but it gave me a great opportunity at a young age to learn the game, improve my skills and most importantly have fun. Weekend tournaments were the highlight, when you’d play till your team lost twice, with a losers bracket that meant sometimes playing 6 or more games. And once you lost, you hung around to enjoy the other games and the cold refreshments. Check out the 1973 Minster Post photo below of Russia’s Apartment C team that didn't made it through the losers bracket but won another trophy of sorts and obviously had a great time (love those mini-skirted Russia girls). They were in constant competition with a Loramie team called the Bull Twangers for the coveted refreshment trophy.