Playing Championship, Slow-Pitch Softball at Clemson University

Out to Pastoral

by John Idol

BURLINGTON North Carolina—(Weekly Hubris)—8/1/11—My fellow columnist, Skip Eisiminger, and I played intramural softball for more than two decades at Clemson University, first for a Charlie Brown imitation fielded by the English Department; then for a team combining players from the English and History departments under the club name of Liberal Arts. With a few ringers from the ranks of assistant coaches from the Athletic Department, that second team played championship ball, going 35-0 during one season. But the team fell apart when many players left Clemson to take teaching and coaching positions elsewhere.

Another powerhouse team, one made up of players from the Department of Agricultural Engineering, for similar reasons, collapsed at the same time. To continue play, the two short-handed teams hit upon a quick solution—why not join forces and play together under the management of Jack Davis, from the AgEng Department?

But what to call the team, something raunchy as many teams were named? For example: The Gonads, or The Ballbusters. Something self-deprecating? The Bad Eggs or The No-accounts? Something allusive: The Star-trekkers?

We tried and were unhappy with “LibAgs,” “AgPoets,” “PoetAgs,” and other tags linking us to our departments and college.

Nothing had the right ring. We had to tell our opponents that we were still searching for a name. One of them, quickly and firmly, if not strongly rooted in the customs of standard English, blurted out, “Hell, you ain’t nothing but a bunch of Mercenaries!” He meant to imply that, as a round-up of ringers, we were simply playing to win the T-shirts that went to championship squads.

And win we did, shirt after shirt, season after season, spring, summer, fall, once or twice going undefeated, a powerhouse team of graduate students, staff members and grizzly professors, with an average age close to 50. A couple of our ringers came from the staff, one of them Donnie Allen, who worked in the campus mail service; the other Wally Bowen, formerly the starting quarterback on the Presbyterian College football team, held a position in Communications, sometimes serving as speech writer for Clemson’s president. Donnie sent balls flying over fences, and Wally, at shortstop, snapped up every ball that came his way and batted an astronomical .850 or so.

(It is with deep sorrow that I now record Wally’s struggle to combat Lou Gehrig’s Disease. I must sadly record, also, the untimely death of our right fielder, Dwight Camper, a victim of Alzheimer’s. He was a much respected plant pathologist. Without meaning to name-drop, I regretfully add celebrated novelist and short story writer Barry Hannah to this list of former teammates. For a season or two, as a member of the Liberal Arts team, Barry took a break from writing fiction to play third base.)

The juggernaut that Jack Davis assembled rolled over team after team, led by Robert Harrison, a softball junky with a gimpy leg, who almost never failed to get a hit. He piled on top of intramural play many weekend tournaments as a member of some company-sponsored club. He seemed to live for softball.

Our lead-off man, Ron Gant, a speedy hold-over from Agricultural Engineering, proved a tough out, for he slapped the ball to the opposite side from his left-handed batting stance, and beat out grounder after grounder. His light-hearted banter with his teammates helped keep the team loose.

The speedster in the outfield was Kenny Pruitt, picked up from Computer Science to play left field. I’m not at all sure he did it, but my suspicion is that he instantly calculated vector angles of balls to the right or left of him and did unerring arithmetic of how far to come in, or go back, for a ball. As the team’s pitcher, I always breathed easily when a ball headed out towards Kenny. It would be caught!

Not far behind Donnie as a power hitter, Gary Campbell, a member of the Dean of Students’ staff, covered center field unflappably and piled up high numbers as an RBI man. He sported a higher batting figure than Donnie, happy to hit run-producing doubles or triples rather than majestic rain-makers. He once complained of the boredom of shagging flies off the bats of guys who lacked the power to “burn” him. He loved a challenge.

When Barry Hannah left Clemson for the University of Alabama, his replacement, Bud Bodine, came to us from the Animal Science Department. He had remarkable stories to tell on the sidelines and bench about his pioneering research on sharks. He later became president of the Faculty Senate. No one was ever unhappier to see an opposing outfielder snare one of his line drives.

After the first baseman, Jerry Davis, on the old Agricultural Engineering team, moved on to the University of Georgia, Skip came in from the outfield to replace him, his long arms and height making him a great target. Skip was also a good pitcher, sometimes getting the nod as starter when our manager saw a need for a hotter batter than I in the line-up. For the fun of it, after the team had built a big lead, Skip and I sometimes traded positions, something I enjoyed except when Wally Bowen fired a bullet to me. His throws stung.

The “Charlie Hustle” guy on our team was Gordon Hammond, cheerleader, statistician, and daring base-runner, always striving to turn singles into doubles. He was also a holdover from the Agricultural Engineering team. From the Agronomy Department came Doyce Graham, utility infielder and cunning hitter, repeatedly capable of placing balls where they couldn’t be fielded. Bill Pace, a member of the campus police force, proved as dependable at the plate as he was in the field.

Both the driving force and the glue of the team was Jack Davis. A solid player himself, especially as a batter, he kept his team happy by holding himself out of the line-up until there was an insurmountable lead. He knew the rules of the game and how to stroke egos.

After victory piled on top of victory, I turned to the manager’s and my score book and did some arithmetic. Though standing in awe of Cy Young’s unbeatable record in baseball. I yearned to pass his total for wins (511). Eventually, I did, posting 516 Ws and only 123 losses. But I take little credit, for in slow-pitch softball the pitcher’s success depends largely on the talents of his teammates. They were peerless.

Unless some fanatic softball players at Clemson form a team willing to stick together for well over a decade as perennial winners, I doubt that records set by The Mercenaries will ever be matched or broken. And speaking of fanatics, on the mousepad I’m using as I write this piece is a candid photo of me delivering an arching pitch.