{"id":1172,"date":"2009-05-26T06:03:33","date_gmt":"2009-05-26T14:03:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fastpitchwest.com\/thedeuce\/?p=1172"},"modified":"2009-05-26T09:17:23","modified_gmt":"2009-05-26T17:17:23","slug":"once-thriving-sport-of-fastpitch-softball-now-thing-of-past-at-prescott-field","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/fastpitchwest.com\/thedeuce\/?p=1172","title":{"rendered":"Once thriving sport of fastpitch softball now thing of past at Prescott Field"},"content":{"rendered":"

Editor’s Note: The following comes from the Lebanon Daily News in Pennsylvania and is, sadly, a sign of the times.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

By DAN SERNOFFSKY
\nDaily News Sportswriter
\nLebanon Daily News
\nUpdated: 05\/25\/2009 11:08:46 PM EDT<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nThis summer, the benches and bleachers at Prescott Field will be void of fastpitch softball players and fans. (Gordon Oliver \/ Lebanon Daily News)<\/em><\/p>\n

PRESCOTT \u2014 It wasn\u2019t all that many years ago when it would have been unthinkable. Memorial Day weekend, the unofficial start of summer, had arrived, and Prescott Field was dormant. <\/p>\n

Once, not that long ago, Prescott Field was one of the most-used facilities in Lebanon County. <\/p>\n

Prescott Field is still used, but not to the extent that it used to be. Men\u2019s fastpitch softball, the sport that once dominated Lebanon County\u2019s summers, has effectively ceased to exist. The last holdout, South Lebanon TNT, disbanded shortly after last year\u2019s ISC II tournament in Wisconsin. <\/p>\n

The decision to disband the team was made by Irv Lutz, the team\u2019s general manager and the man who had been fighting against the odds for the better part of a decade to keep fastpitch going. Some serious health concerns, and a handful of other factors, led to the decision. <\/p>\n

\u201cI always thought I couldn\u2019t live without softball,\u201d Lutz said, \u201cbut when I ended up getting ill and finding out that my health was important, I thought it would be a tough thing this year not having a team, but I\u2019m living with it.\u201d <\/p>\n

Lutz began having difficulties in 2005. Forced to go on dialysis because of kidney problems, he developed a back infection that led to two major surgeries. There were some additional problems, as well, and Lutz found himself hospitalized with uncomfortable frequency. <\/p>\n

\u201cI was a person that was always on the go, and now I have to depend on people to help me,\u201d he said. \u201cIf it wouldn\u2019t be for my wife and two boys… They\u2019ve been the Rock of Gibraltar for me.\u201d The health problems simply exacerbated other problems. <\/p>\n

\u201cMy brother Lee, he was a big help as far as the coaching went,\u201d said Lutz, \u201cand after we won the championship in 2007, he said he\u2019d commit to one more year. He decided to get out of coaching.\u201d <\/p>\n

There was also the fundraising. Although he was quick to credit Leonard Tobias of TNT, the team\u2019s sponsor, for his financial support, Lutz noted that the team still had to raise additional funds, and that task fell to his wife, Deb. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt just became too much,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

Still, it wasn\u2019t without regret that Lutz decided to call it quits, especially in looking back on the Lebanon County\u2019s fastpitch history. <\/p>\n

\u201cIn the late 1960s and 1970s, and into the 1980s, either here (at Prescott) or at Stoevers, that was the hotbed of softball in this area,\u201d he said. \u201cThe City-County League, games would be on the radio, and you\u2019d come here for a game, and there would be 1,000 people sometimes. There were a lot of good players in this league. It was very competitive.\u201d <\/p>\n

The biggest competition was between South Lebanon \u2014 sponsored by Country House, then Wet Your Whistle, and finally TNT \u2014 and Jolly Molly. <\/p>\n

\u201cThat rivalry went back for years and years,\u201d said Lutz. \u201cToday I have a lot of friends from Jolly Molly, but back then when you stepped on the field, you weren\u2019t friends. The fans could see that competitiveness. They had a lot of good players over the years, and we had a lot of good players over the years. After the \u201980s, when they got out of it, that was the demise of softball. That really hurt because you didn\u2019t have the tournaments we used to have.\u201d <\/p>\n

The success of those two teams had a ripple effect. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a softball tournament almost every weekend in Lebanon County,\u201d said Lutz. \u201cLebanon was known for its softball. When you said Jolly Molly or Country House, everybody in the state knew where you were from. As far as the economy around here, people don\u2019t realize how much it hurt the economy. All the tournaments we had, we always hurt for hotels, but we\u2019d have 30-team tournaments back in the \u201970s and \u201980s.\u201d <\/p>\n

The success of South Lebanon and Jolly Molly also raised the level of play for other teams in the old City-County League. <\/p>\n

\u201cTeams like Strickler\u2019s Insurance, Risser\u2019s, Lauck\u2019s, they all wanted to beat us,\u201d said Lutz, \u201cand they did sometimes. The league was competitive. We had A, B and C. We had a C league, and we had the Industrial League. Some of those guys played in both leagues.\u201d <\/p>\n

It was, said Lutz, men like his brother Hal, who died in 1997; the late Ray Brown, the man behind Jolly Molly; and Ron Weidman who played a major role in making the game what it was. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you have a leader like Ray Brown was, he was a big booster of softball around here, like my brother Hal was, you\u2019ve got to give him credit,\u201d Lutz said. \u201cLike Ron Weidman. Those guys were the reason softball was the way it was. Ray Brown, Hal Lutz, Ron Weidman, when they got out of it, that really took a toll.\u201d <\/p>\n

And the game, in Lebanon County, may not recover. <\/p>\n

\u201cI prayed and hoped (fastpitch) would make a comeback,\u201d Lutz said, \u201cbut there\u2019s just so many things now. I don\u2019t see it coming back unless you get leaders like Ray and Ron and Hal. They just put things together, and unless people come to the front, it\u2019s not gonna happen.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Editor’s Note: The following comes from the Lebanon Daily News in Pennsylvania and is, sadly, a sign of the times. By DAN SERNOFFSKY Daily News Sportswriter Lebanon Daily News Updated: 05\/25\/2009 11:08:46 PM EDT This summer, the benches and bleachers at Prescott Field will be void of fastpitch softball players and fans. (Gordon Oliver \/ […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1,6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/fastpitchwest.com\/thedeuce\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1172"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/fastpitchwest.com\/thedeuce\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/fastpitchwest.com\/thedeuce\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fastpitchwest.com\/thedeuce\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fastpitchwest.com\/thedeuce\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1172"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/fastpitchwest.com\/thedeuce\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1172\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/fastpitchwest.com\/thedeuce\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fastpitchwest.com\/thedeuce\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fastpitchwest.com\/thedeuce\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}