[Grand Island, NE]
It’s not easy playing high-level men’s fastpitch softball.
Brian Lammers can certainly attest to that.
“It’s a grind,” said Lammers, a 1991 graduate of Grand Island Senior High and former Nebraska-Kearney baseball player. “We don’t fly. We drive most of the time. When it’s seven or eight hours there and seven or eight hours back in a car, it takes a toll on you.”
Lammers had a big summer playing for Albaugh, Inc., out of Elkhart, Iowa. The Albaugh team had some good success on the field, and Lammers had a great season at the plate.
Lammers, a Lincoln resident who works at Anderson Ford, is utility-type player who can play outfield, first base and catcher. He played mostly first base this summer after the regular first baseman was injured, but wherever he played in the field, he hit the ball well at the plate.
“It was the best year I’ve had in the open division,” Lammers said. “It was just one of those years. I was hitting well at the start of the year and things kind of fell into place. It just kept going for the whole year.”
Going and going and going. It was an 11-weekend season that started the end of May and just finished up a week ago when Elkhart hosted its own tournament.
Lammers has played for the Albaugh team the past three seasons. His fastpitch career started when he was just 19 years old playing with his dad, Jerry, at the Platte Duetsche in Grand Island.
Mike Schwieger, who was Lammers’ coach in American Legion baseball back in the early 1990s, helped him get started at the national level. He started at Class B and worked his way up to the open division.
Schwieger, also a former Islanders and a Loper baseball player, was one of the premier men’s players in the country until he retired a few years ago. It was an announcement that caught Lammers by surprise.
“He was a great player,” Lammers said. “I was shocked when I heard he was retiring from fastpitch cold turkey. He was such a gamer, but he did it.”
Lammers can certainly understand what Schwieger was going through. He knows how tough it is to have a family and play world-class softball at the same time.
Lammers and his wife Ashley have a daughter, Shelby (age 5), and a son, Toby (age 2).
“It’s a big commitment to play as much as we play and to leave every weekend,” Lammers said. “You have your kids call and say, ‘We miss you. When are you coming home?’ It’s kind of a year-by-year thing.”
Lammers would like to have his family with him on all the road trips, but it’s just not possible. When you have two young children, you practically have to take the entire house with you when you hit the road.
Sometimes that road stretches way out over the horizon. He and his father flew to the tournament in Kitchener, but missed their flight back because the team kept winning, and wining, and winning.
Albaugh finished fifth in the World Tournament, but that success meant Brian and Jerry had to drive all the way back from Kitchener. That was 15 hours on the road for Brian and 17 for Jerry.
Brian, now 34, can obviously still get it done on the road and in the field. He was named second-team All-World in the major division and was a first-team selection at the NAA Tournament.
But how long he plays is yet to be determined.
“I have to talk to my wife every year,” he said. “My kids are getting to the age when they will start playing. My wife says, ‘You tell me you’re going to quit every year.’ I’ll sit down with them and discus what’s on the schedule. We’ll play it by ear.”
Bob Hamar is assistant sports editor at The Independent.
© The Grand Island Independent
