Educated at De Paul Academy and Loyola University, Joe Hutmacher’s athletic career started as a basketball player at DePaul Academy where his team took second to Marshall High School in the 1948 City Championship game. He then went on to player for three seasons at Loyola University. His 16″ softball career took him to Thillens …
Bill Hunts distinguished softball career began in the 1940s with a team from the May Club. He also played for the Club Marquette and Red Circle in the neighborhood leagues and with Fewer Boilers in the Windy City League. Born and raised on Chicago’s Southwest Side, “Lefty” Hunt is remembered as being one of the …
Gene began playing softball at the age of 13 in Cicero. At 16 he played for Sams Tavern, Wolak’s Lounge, Triner’s All – Stars, and Murphy Motors. In 1947-48 Gene played Midwest semi-professional ball with Cole-Lenzi. Gene’s softball career was interrupted when he served in the Korean War for 2 years (1951-53) as a forward …
During a 30 year 16″ softball career, playing for some of the great Pioneer Era teams at some of the legendary softball stadiums, Michael Hanas has indeed experienced some of the great moments of the early days of softball. Hanas played with such Pioneer teams as Bonnetts, Silhouettes, Whips, Jack O’Lanterns, and the early Bobcats. …
John Hechinger began his softball career with St. Viator Grade in 1942 when they made it to the quarter finals in the St. Ignatius tournament. A left fielder who also played first and third, Hechinger had a lifetime batting average over 600, and hit 350 home runs. From 1942 to 1957 Hechinger’s teams won twelve …
James Holmes is known as a superb left hand hitter and right fielder who played with some of the top leagues on the Southside. Holmes played in the top division at 49th and Dorchester and in the Southside Cocktail League. Holmes interrupted his 16″ career with a three year stint in the Marine Corps. Once …
The founder of softball. Hancock was a reporter for the Chicago Board of Trade. In 1887 on a rainy Thanksgiving Day while waiting for the ticker tape results of the Harvard-Yale football game at Farragut Boat Club in Chicago, now a land fill south of Soldiers Field, a group of bored young men tied up …
