Like many young people growing up in the inner city of Chicago, Dennis Colucci sought activities that were affordable and could be played in the streets and parks of Chicago. Sixteen-inch softball fit that requirement perfectly. He started playing organized softball in 1956 with the Jokers, a neighborhood team from Chicago Avenue. He became their […]
Clyde Park District located in Cicero has been the site of softball league for decades. Starting in 1985 executive director Rusty Carlson took the league to the next level by attracting some of the best teams in the game until 1995 with his Super A league and tournaments for men and women. His hard work
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When it was completed in 1916, many considered north side Clarendon Park to be the largest and most practical bathing beaches in the country it lost this status in the 1930s when the Chicago Park District expanded Lincoln Park north to Foster Avenue, eliminating Clarendon’s lake frontage. While it was a great swimming beach and
Percy V. Coleman began his softball career with the Flamingos in 1964 when he was twenty-three years old. His competitive spirit and love of softball and basketball drove him to play these sports at top levels. Percy turned this passion into a championship basketball career at Crane Junior College and Chicago State University where he
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THE BEGINNING My love for softball started in the early 70’s by going from park to ark with my dad to watch my brother Tom “Eggs” Czarnik play this great game of sixteen-inch softball. I remember my first time watching him play at Clarendon Park and was intrigued by the number of people surrounding the
It was the fall of 1991. Another softball season had just come to an end. While most people were taking a few months to get reacquainted with family and settle back into a more “normal” life without softball, Tim Walker was restless. His Philly Bar and Grill team had just completed a disappointing finish to
Eddie Chibe played competitive sixteen-inch softball from 1979 to 2008. During these thirty-years, he played on two ASA “A” National Championship teams, one ASA Major National championship team, two USSSA National Championship teams, and five Forest Park No Glove National championship teams. Additionally, his teams won two Hawthorne Park titles, three Melrose Park championships, three
Dan Carmody was born in October of 1955 in the Beverly neighborhood of Chicago’s South Side. He graduated from St. Ignatius High School and played baseball his freshman year at Regis University in Denver, Colorado before transferring to the University of Alabama. There he was given the nickname Sheik and graduated with a degree
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Rich Catizone started playing softball when he was fourteen. He played on local teams with his friends on the playgrounds in Chicago. He was young and inexperienced and his teams lost most of their games, but he loved the game from the beginning. A few years later, Rich met Hall of Fame manager Nick
Crush started out in 1978 when a bunch of high-school friends put together a team and started competing at McGuane Park. In 1979 and ’80 they won the 18 and under title at McGuane. The next year they played in the Donovan Park Open League, made the playoffs, and then took second to the Stickmen
