A Brief History Of Stanislaus Senior Softball

[from The Commit Line, SSSA’s newsletter of June 12, 1997.]

Players who join the Stanislaus Senior Softball Association share at least two common reactions:  an awareness of mortality, and a feeling of gratitude.

The mortality concern isn’t about life and death, but is an unspoken awareness that there is a finite number of months or seasons remaining to feel the ball catch that sweet spot, to smell the freshly mown outfield grass, to hear a buddy’s quiet praise for a fine catch, a true throw. It isn’t a morbid brooding over the approaching end of a sports career, but we are aware of it just the same.

The gratitude is directly connected to that mortality we feel. We are grateful to be alive, to be out there on the field, thankful to whoever refused to believe those who have survived half a century or more are too old to play the game.

The Stanislaus Senior Softball Association was given life in the spring of 1989, chiefly through the midwifery of two present members, Jack Leach and LaVerne Streeter. Leach, who would turn 55 years of age that season, and Streeter, 57, were players on the first Modesto senior tournament team, The Modesto Classics, formed the previous year.

“We’d talked about (forming a senior league) a couple of seasons earlier,” recalled Streeter in an interview at Beyer Park in early May. “We were playing against these teams at Redwood City and Sacramento,” added Leach, “and they were playing all the time in their leagues.” Streeter and Leach began calling players and spreading the word about the new league.

Leach recalls that the league, playing at Davis High School’s single field, opened the 1989 season with six teams. It is believed to have expanded to eight teams before the season’s end. A document provided to The Commit Line shows a total of 109 players listed for the 1989 season, many of whom are still active players in S.S.S.A.

The league operated informally that first year. “The first year, I was the president and Verne was the treasurer. That’s  about the way it worked,” said Leach. “I thought I was the president!” shot back Streeter.

The second year, 1990, brought with it a number of changes. Realizing the need for a more formal, democratic control mechanism, the Association was formed. Officers were elected, along with a board of directors, and rules governing play and administration were adopted.

Officers included Jack Leach, President; Karl Finch,President-Elect; Al Killian, Secretary; and Jim Bento, Treasurer. Eight board members were named:  Lloyd Cooper, Bob Earl, Clay Enzminger, Charlie Partin, John Simas, Darwin Skiles, Verne Streeter, and Ed Thomas.

In 1992, a formal set of bylaws were drafted and adopted, and the Association was incorporated. Then-treasurer Michael DeFonce qualified the Association as a tax-exempt organization early in 1993.

Most players who begin competition in the league are a little surprised to learn that no team standings are maintained, and no trophies are awarded to winning teams. The absence of statistics and prizes is not based on a lack of organized approach, but is a well thought out calculation adopted to assure the league remain purely recreational in its goals. Charter member Lloyd Cooper perhaps best characterized the league’s philosophy when he noted to a Modesto Bee reporter in a 1993 interview, “It’s kind of funny. At the end of last year, every team thought they had won more than half of their  games.”

When Leach and Streeter were asked whether this low-key approach had been discussed by them in forming the league, Streeter replied, “Yeah, in fact, the first year the City presented us with these huge trophies. We told them from the git go that we didn’t want to keep any standings. We just wanted it to be recreation.”

Leach added, “We had a rule that if you didn’t have ten guys, you could just pull guys out of the stands.” Despite the request of some applicants who wished to bring into the league teams they had formed, Leach and Streeter were convinced that pooling all players and drafting teams each year would result in more balanced competition. Such a procedure would also make it easier for less-talented athletes to compete.

The league played those first two years at Davis High School, then, according to Leach, “All of a sudden we outgrew it. We had only one field.” Play was moved to the two fields at Beyer Park, where it has remained since 1992.

Although most old timers concede that Stanislaus Senior Softball Association is the brainchild of Leach and Streeter, even those two concede that the genesis of the league goes back much further in time, as far back as 1954, to the sandy diamond at Mountain View. The Commit Line is conducting interviews and collecting material for a later issue covering those pioneering years in Stanislaus County Senior Softball.