Mt. Prospect Park District’s first involvement with major 16-inch softball came in the late 1970s when the district’s Meadows softball fields hosted a Winston Cup tourney. In 1982 they expanded its summer softball leagues from four to fifteen, then Rick Pyle and Bob Ancona started a softball league that attracted most of the major Chicago teams. In 1983, at the suggestion of Dick Cooper, the league became known as the “Classic League.” On average, the district has 100 recreational softball teams playing in twenty different leagues each summer. A team from the Classic League has won the ASA and SSA Men’s Major National Championships almost every season.
