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 …
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 …
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 …
In the 1950s, Continental Bank played in the Banker’s league, competing against top banks around the Chicago-area. The league ended play in1959. That year First Chicago defeated Continental in the championship game to earn their first spot in the Grant Park Tournament of Champions. That year they took third place out of thirty-two teams. In …
When the history of industrial teams is written, Chicago and North Western Railroad will certainly rank as one of the greatest teams because of its record and its longevity. Started in the 1920s, a 1925 photo of the team shows a twenty-three year old Abe Saperstein as the team’s shortstop and manager, the year before …
Sixteen-inch softball has always been a game that cut across racial, cultural and socioeconomic barriers. What mattered most was how you played the game. During its twenty-seven years together, the Commonwealth Edison corporate team stood as a shining example of this trait. It was a team comprised of office workers, electricians, meter readers, union employees …
