Dennis Andritsis started playing lineball on the streets of Chicago when he was eleven. He played baseball and football at Morton West High School. In 1963 when Dennis was nineteen, legendary coach Gene Pingatore recruited him to play sixteen-inch softball for Triners Lounge in Cicero. In 1966, Triners became Sobies Sports Tap and later the American Rivet Sobies. The Sobies won the ASA Men’s Major Sixteen-inch World Championship three years in a row – 1966, 1967, and 1968. In 2014, the ASA voted the Sobies to be one of the five greatest teams of all time.
In 1977, fourteen years after being recruited by Coach Pingatore, the Sobies were playing a combination of the Bobcats and Strikers. Dennis and Bill Bereckis (HOF) were the only Sobies left from the team that won three world titles in the sixties. They beat the Bobcats / Strikers 11-5 and then went to Forest Park and won the title there – two great wins. The Sobies were champions once again.
Dennis played every position, but third base was his best defensive position. He was a line-drive hitter who could occasionally hit one out of the park. He played semi-pro baseball and was offered a tryout with the New York Mets.
Dennis was a stockbroker and insurance agent. From 1978 – 1980 he was in the restaurant business. For the past thirty-five years, he has been in the maintenance and construction business.
The summer of 2016 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Sobies first ASA title. They still get together for dinner, to play cards, or to play in golf outings. In life as well as in sports, when the Skill is Gone, the Will takes Over.