The end of the 2016 Summer Olympics coincided with the 40th anniversary of the Renegades’ 16-inch softball championship in Bridgeview.
You’re probably thinking, so what?
Compared to all-star basketball players, rhythmic gymnasts and international soccer stars, the heyday for a team of car salesmen, Realtors, teachers and carpenters might seem trifling.
But to me and anyone else interested in loyalty, the American dream and the price of draft beer, the wonder is why my editor did not paste this on page one.
You see, in the summer of 1976, the Renegades, coached by John Stroud, the owner of a local trucking firm, was signed up for two softball leagues: Hale Park in Chicago, 63rd and Narragansett; and Wierzba Park in Bridgeview, 78th & Oketo.
Why two?
When boys become men, find jobs and start families, they are still near or at the peak of their athleticism. A time when Olympic athletes negotiate pro contracts, and when wannabes like us must find a sports outlet to satisfy the athletic drive.
Though not as strong as sex or hunger, the athletic drive is real. It’s why you find Nerf basketball nets on the backs of office doors in the Loop, or grown men in skates and shin guards playing hockey in Crestwood’s Southwest Ice Arena at 3 a.m.
Softball was our solution. All you need is a bat and ball, a neighborhood park and a sponsor, usually a tavern owner, to buy 15 uniform jerseys.
Chicago has always been the capital of 16-inch, also known as bare-handed softball, mush ball or slow-pitch. Thousands of men and women play today in the city and suburbs, from Kelly Park to Mount Prospect.
It enjoyed its greatest popularity in the 1970s, primarily because Pulitzer Prize-winning Tribune columnist Mike Royko was a player and fan. He not only wrote about it, but he got TV to broadcast a tournament with legendary teams like the Bobcats and Strikers.
Our 1976 Renegades were not the Bobcats. Not even close. But we had Ralph Fiore — with a physique like Babe Ruth, a handlebar mustache and a man-perm — who was the home run king in both leagues. With a swing that was like slamming an oak door, he could smack skyscraper fly balls up into the jet stream and onto 79th Street.
Left fielder Barry Booth, our youngest, turned base hits into forced outs at first with a howitzer for a throwing arm.
Leadoff man and Vietnam vet Pat McGrath (my little brother) played shortstop at a “high” caliber in every sense of the word.
Center fielder Jimmy Dolan, the only man in the league with violet eyes, had the range of an antelope.
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Bill Chase, the original “Billy-Ball” pioneer, drew nearly 50 walks in both leagues.
Telephone lineman Mike Pavlick started most of our surges by stealing second.
Relief pitcher Charlie Farrell, a crackerjack car salesman, kept opponents off guard with both his humor and pickoff move.
Tom Booth, Tim Dougherty, John Booth and John Freely, accomplished high school athletes, gave us street cred.
I batted fourth. I could not field or throw, and was slow of foot, which is why I played catcher. But like every other South Side worker on the team, I was inspired by Fiore’s talent and dominance. He took off all the pressure and made us think we’d win every game.
But we made it harder than it had to be.
That’s because the Hale Park games were on Sundays at 10 a.m., and the Bridgeview game usually didn’t start till 3. So we would wait between games at Stancyk’s Tap on 85th and Harlem, where we drank Old Style draft, leg wrestled and watched the White Sox on TV.
In a minor complication, the bartender bought the house a round every time a Sox player hit a home run. But he often failed to realize in the early days of replay technology, that a home run after a commercial was merely a repeat from a previous inning.
The result was consumption of more beer than what’s generally recommended for game prep, which invariably put us in the hole during the early innings at Bridgeview. It’s not as if we were falling down. But our timing was sufficiently off in the hitting department, which, in softball, is everything.
But as we sweated and regained our conditioning, we rallied from behind in the late innings to win every time.
Come playoff time, we faltered at Hale Park. Several players were on family vacation or disabled, including myself, with two broken fingers from fielding bazooka throws from third baseman Bill Dixon.
With Hale’s season ended, and no down time at Stancyk’s, we were at the top of our game in Bridgeview, getting a big victory over the Clan, an older, unscrupulous team, that sneaked four outfielders into the game, a violation nobody noticed until the sixth inning.
Prior to the championship final against the Warriors, comprised of teachers from Argo High School, Coach Stroud proposed a wager to Warrior coach and softball Hall of Famer Gary Klonowski, that the winner take all, meaning the cash prize for both first and second places. Klonowski refused, but later admitted that our arrogance psyched out his Warriors in a high-scoring contest in which the Renegades ultimately prevailed.
It’s one thing for kids to win a trophy. But grown men pulling together for a championship is a rare and poignant event. I won’t equate it with the camaraderie of soldiers or of U.S. athletes in Rio. More like men who must move a piano, and the way they feel and look at one another after they’ve gotten it up the stairs.
For working stiffs, it’s a pinnacle.
And along the way, we learned that whatever you attempt in life — while, perhaps, less fun — you will likely do a better job without the beer.
David McGrath is an emeritus English professor at the College of DuPage and the author of “The Territory.”