Gene Mathis was born in Chicago during the Great Depression. Like many great players, he started playing softball with the older boys in the neighborhood. But he had an advantage that other young players might not have had. He had a bat and ball. His grandfather found them as scavenged the more affluent areas of […]
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Rollo Kuebler’s love of softball began early when he was in grade school at Audubon School on Chicago’s Northside. He started playing fast-pitch with teams during the late 1930s, but switched to playing sixteen-inch ball with Witt’s Audubon’s, a group of neighborhood kids playing at Welles Park. They won numerous championships during the early ‘40s.
Gil Muratori arrived in Chicago from Italy in October of 1938 when he was just a few months old. But in 1948, when he was ten years old, he adopted Chicago’s great game and started a twenty-eight year softball career that would change the way teams used a catcher. He started playing in the streets
After graduating from St. Ignatius High School in 1947 where he was named an All-Catholic all-star in football, Jerry went on to Loras College to do more of the same. In fact, as a freshman, he caught the first pass ever thrown to him for a touchdown. That year he helped lead Loras to a
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Although Joseph Pusateri was one of those kids who loved sports, he always knew from a young age that baseball was his passion. He was influenced by his stepfather who played baseball as a kid and passed his love for the game on to Joseph by taking him to the park to practice hitting
Players who played against and with John Salovitch remember him as an imposing right-handed hitter who could hit to all fields for average and power. He played first base with the Kenneth Allen team in the first world tournament finals in 1964 and 1965. He also played first base with a number of other top
Pete Rocco began his 34 year softball career in eighth grade playing on a local team at a school they nicknamed “The Island” around Roosevelt and Austin. He continued playing for local teams all through Austin High School where he also played baseball. He played for Triners Lounge in Cicero and Stickney in 1952 through
Robert McCormack started his softball career in 1950 with the Braves and before he was finished he would play at some of the top parks and with some of the best teams of his era. After the Braves, he was recruited to play with the Yanks before heading over to play with Eddie Barretts for
Ed Whitman’s softball career began in 1946 when he was an eighth grader at Blaine School in Chicago. When he entered Lake View High School (where he played baseball, basketball, and football), he began playing in money games with Allen Edmond Shoes. The older guys who could drive cars would pick him up and would
When Bud Lucchetti began umpiring softball, he was a member of the Umpires Protective Association Bud Lucchetti started his umpiring career when he noticed the lack of good umpires for the league he formed at Calumet Park. In his early days, he was a member of the Umpires Protective Association (U.P.A.) He later formed and
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