Scouting the Competition - Satch's Tavern reunites for
fundrasing tournament

	The New England Patriots aren’t the only ones capable of secretly filming their competition. Apparently one of the more competitive minded teams that will be playing in the Bobby Page Memorial Foundation’s 2nd annual “End of Summer Bash” was extremely concerned over the news that the 1977 Satch’s Tavern team was reuniting. This digital image of one of the more formidable players from Satch’s warming up, was intercepted by the Rome Men’s Softball association’s counter intelligence branch, based out of Korps Corner.

ROME - Way back in 1977 there was a budding force to be reckoned with in the Rome Men s Softball association, known as Satch s Tavern.

A ragtag collection of, high school friends, auto parts peddlers, mill rats and furniture movers. That s right, furniture movers.

Where do you think that old saying get that piano off your back and run! came from? That was 30 years ago. Now Cookie runs like he s dragging that piano instead of carrying it.

As you may have guessed this reporter has some personal knowledge of Satch's colorful past. Indeed, for I was a part of many of the adventures that were later responsible for many of the rules that now govern men's softball today. (Predominantly the ones concerning the parking lot and wooded areas of Wright Haselton).

Back then we were easy to spot because of our bright red jerseys, with the picture of an extra large beer mug emblazoned across the front. Nowadays, we're just easy to spot.

In those days Wright Haselton Park was busy seven nights a week during the softball season and I remember when organizers started a Friday morning league made up of midnight and afternoon shift workers from Revere and some of the other local mills.

I still have my Midnight Rollers jersey hanging in the back of the closet, for what reason, I know not, for it is destined to never fit again. However, it does bring back some laughable moments, like watching Joe Koenig run the bases after pounding the ball to the outfield.

He could hit like the Babe, but his running, on the other hand, reminded me of the character IchaBod Crane, in the Legend of Sleepy Hollow, riding his horse flat out toward the covered bridge, minus the horse, of course. The parking lots were packed full of cars from teams that numbered in the 90s and a host of spectators as well.

When Satch's was playing, it wasn t hard to find us in the crowded lot, once you spotted Freddy Tyler's Gold Fastback Nova, that meant Larry Perry's red Z28 Camaro was close at hand, with Paul Trela's rare 1959 Cadillac, (the Green Goddess) fins and all, parked alongside. Bobby would roll in with his Oldsmobile F-85, or if it was early in the spring he d still be driving his winter rat, a Mercury Marauder that resembled a landing craft from World War II. I was riding a Kawasaki KZ1000 painted black with flames, with my glove, bat and cleats strapped to the back. Sarge Johnson had a yellow Mustang, and if Mark Money showed up to watch, you could feast your eyes on his cherry 69 Z28 Camaro.

This was the heyday of organized softball in Rome. Every tavern, restaurant and family business sponsored teams in a variety of different leagues. Jimmy Korpela remembered when Ted Stanhope from the Lights Out dance club on N. James Street, sponsored a team from Rome, which won the ASA State title in Rochester back in the mid 80s.

Those were great times for guys that wanted to play ball, commented the avid league volunteer. There was all levels of competition available back then, not just in leagues but weekend tournaments as well. If you wanted to play you just had to pick which night, said Jim.

Jimmy is probably one of the most knowledgeable guys around from our day on the subject of men's softball and, with good reason, aside from being a top notch ball player himself, he's been extremely active and directly involved with the organizing and running of the leagues for years.

To that end I might add he did a stellar job, of not only running the incredible logistics of the league, but putting up with the whining, crying and complaining that usually accompanies volunteer work such as that. I believe the league that Satch's played in was the Sunday night recreation league, which was adequately named because a little recreation was all we were really looking for. That's probably the reason our core group of players stayed together so long. We were there to have fun first, win if we did, but always have fun. We all worked and had our private lives to deal with come what may. When we got together on Sunday nights we started the game as friends and ended the night (whenever the end came) as friends.

Luckily for me I had to be to work by 11:30 on Sunday night, so I missed most of the festivities that usually preceded a hangover the next day. I do recall celebrating some big victories a time or two, which required me to give my old boss in the rolling mill, John Nowicki, a call about 11:15 to tell him some BS story about why I wasn t coming in. He always seemed to believe me at least that's what I thought. Years later we were out back in the cemetery, talking about our old mill days, when he informed me that he knew every time when I was giving him a line of bull. He said the background noise coming out of the phone on my end was louder then the noise in the mill. Hey, there were no cell phones in those days, you had to use the house phone and it was always near the jukebox.

It seems every game we played would almost always conclude with several sidesplitting moments. So many in fact that, as Bobby suggested, we should get together and write a book about it. Indeed we will Bob, but for now let us share at least one of the many tales of the incredible athleticism, routinely displayed by members of the historic Satch's Tavern team.

Pulled from the pages of a saga whose creation spanned nearly 10 years and after this weekend I'm sure there will be a few more chapters to add, comes the story of an incredible play at first base. A play so dynamically performed, so graceful in its purest form, so unbelievably odd that at the time of its execution there arouse such a debate that everyone involved concluded that because Stan Evans could not be reached for his interpretation it was determined that no one there was qualified to make any assertion but the obvious the first baseman got the ball in his glove before the runner touched the base, he's out!

Now allow me to describe if you will, the manner in which yours truly received the ball in order to complete the play on such a positive defensive note. The batter of record shall remain nameless, as his only real contribution was to put the ball in play (and besides that, who would go to all the bother of remembering such trivial facts).

The play began when the batter of record drove a resounding ground ball in the direction of our second baseman, Bobby Page. Bob reacted to the impending contact of the fast approaching ball, with his usual cat-like reflexes, as the ball hit his glove with an explosive crack! His left arm recoiled to absorb the shock. He fought to control the missile-like projectile now in his possession, turned toward me and tried to position himself for the throw. I was starting to make my stretch from first base toward him, just as the ball fell from his possession and began to roll away from him toward the right field baseline but ahead of where I was poised to receive the intended delivery.

Bobby quickly bent over and tried to retrieve the ball but his grasp fell short and the ball continued to roll. As the footsteps of the fast-approaching runner started to pound in our eardrums like the thunder from a mid-summer night s storm, Bobby realized he couldn t risk trying to bend over again (bending never was his forte, and for most of us on the team now, bending down that low is completely out of the question). So without any other conventional defensive tactics at his disposal, Bobby took a couple of lighting fast stutter steps, caught up to the ball and with a quick flick of his right leg, in a style that would no doubt impress Mia Hamm, he kicked the ball back in the direction of first base. and right into my awaiting glove, which I had repositioned just in the nick of time.

No kidding folks, true story. Of course if I were to be completely truthful with my readers Bob, I don t think the ball was hit all that hard and if memory serves me the guy at bat was a rather large fellow, and he wasn t running all that fast either. But he did make a lot of noise and he wasn t too happy, but I m not sure he was mad because we got him out in such an unorthodox manner or if it was because we laid there for 10 minutes holding our sides from laughing so hard.

The norm in today's society is to refer to one's past athletic exploits as the Glory Days. However, I would rather refer to my past and future exploits with the Satch's crew, as just the Good Ol Days of simple fun and friendship.

©Rome Observer 2007