After graduating from St. Ignatius High School in 1964, Ken Izral began playing sixteen-inch softball with the Impalas at Sherman Park. The team was an average team, but it launched Ken into a stellar softball career. The next year he was recruited by Cordsman Inn, the top team in that league. Besides Sherman Park, […]
During the late 60’s and early 70’s, many softball experts considered Bob Bernstein to be one of the best all around third basemen in the city. He was a star, leader and anchor for the great Shooter teams of that era. Not only did Bob hit for average (.550 to .600 each year), but
It was the summer of ’84 when Ron and Rich Onesti opened a custom athletic uniform shop on West Irving Park Road inChicago. Thesilkscreenoperationthat started with simple t-shirts quickly grew into one of the largest sports specialty shopsintheMidwest. Astheybeganthe operation, schools, businesses and local teams purchased their athletic wear from thenewlyfoundedenterprise. Then,the 1985 Superbowl
As a kid, Sal Milazzo remembers watching his dad, Nick Milazzo, play sixteen-inch softball at Saint Bonaventure Elementary School in Chicago. Sal had the opportunity to play softball in the intramural program at Northern Illinois University. After the championship game his senior year, he was asked to pitch for the Willoughby Elrod Raiders at
Don Savage has been a member of a sixteen-inch softball team for seventy- eight years, from 1935 to the end of the 2013 season. His teams have won more that forty championships and Don has played in or managed in approximately thirty-five senior leagues at parks throughout Chicago and the suburbs Don attended St.
Floyd Glover’s softball career started with the Indians and fellow Hall of Famer Henry Currie. His playing days took a turn for the worse, however, when he suffered a back injury while in the Marine Corps. That injury put an end to his days of playing competitive softball. The injury didn’t put an end to
From playing with Electrician’s Local 714 at Garfield Park at sixteen years of age to playing with Sam’s in the St. Charles League at the age of sixty, Jimmy Nallen has been a major factor on teams (Whips, Rogues, Bruins) that have amassed 117 championships, including world titles with the Sobies and Metro and Forest
A lifelong softball player, Austin “Spider” Ware began playing with Hall of Fame inductee Billy “Bumstead” Johnson in 1961 at Parkman Elementary School. He co-founded and played second base with his first team, the Invaders, in 1963. They dominated play until 1967 when they merged with the Van Dykes, managed by the great Floyd Neal.
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