The chatter coming from the dugout at Sumner High isn’t the type most would expect during a softball game.
It’s friendly banter about families and business with some occasional good-natured ribbing and punctuated with bursts of laughter.
It’s a great way to spend a Tuesday and Thursday morning, Claire Peterson said, with friends playing softball.
This is the second year Peterson’s 50-and-older, Riverside Pub and Eatery-sponsored, co-ed team has taken the field.
“I’m the Steinbrenner of the Sumner team,” Peterson laughs, making reference to the man behind baseball’s New York Yankees.
She’s also in right field. Linda Orton starts at pitcher. Ellen Kropp crouches behind the plate. Yvonne Belshay nestles in at second base and Betty Codute stands ready at shortstop. The men are filling in the other positions, which can include five in the outfield.
The rules – and there are rules – note a team needs a minimum of three women to play and three women have to be on the field at any time. Everyone bats, but in boy-girl-boy-girl order.
Peterson said getting enough Y-chromosome to play has been a challenge.
“The league needs women,” said Peterson, who began playing with an Auburn team and then with Maple Valley before launching the Sumner organization. “I’m so lucky here. I’ve got seven and seven good ones.”
But she said some teams struggle to fill the league’s three-female minimum.
With the arm-twisting of Jim Sherman, who oversees the umpires, Peterson said she started the Sumner team to open more doors.
The other was to bring more teams in the league to the south end to reduce travel.
Teams come from across the area from cities like Auburn, Kent, Renton, Federal Way, Issaquah, Maple Valley, Lake Samamish and Puyallup. It’s nice, Peterson said, to now play some of their games at home on the fields at Daffodil Elementary or Sumner High.
The league has three divisions with six to seven teams each.
“We’re in the bottom division,” Peterson said. “Division 1 is competitive. They’re hard core. They want to win. We’re in Division 3. We’re recreational. We want to win too, but we do it (play) to have a good time and to exercise.”
The Sumner team racked up four wins in its first season. They’re having more success this season.
“Actually when we have the right team we’re a fairly good team,” said Harold Vandergiff, the team’s manager.
The players run the gamut from those like Peterson, who became interested in the sport a few years ago, to veterans like Belshay.
“When I went to high school there were no women’s teams,” said 62-year-old Belshay, who’s been fielding and hitting on the diamond for 55 years. “But I was the coaches’ daughter.”
She plays where the team needs her, most often in the infield.
The players range in age from the just-turned 50 like Debb Passmore to 80-year-old George Birchler.
“We have another guy who’s 78 and he runs like a jackrabbit,” said Peterson, who just turned 63.
Belshay said they watch out for each other, and Peterson and Vandergiff said there are rules to prevent injury. For example, in this league, runners pass by the bases to prevent collisions.
“If you run to the home plate you’re out,” Peterson said.
That doesn’t mean injuries don’t happen – many are pulled muscles. With the season winding to a close in the next couple of weeks and Peterson’s injured reserve list growing, she’s been recruiting fresh arms and legs to fill the gaps. The newcomers are quickly becoming part of the family.
“I love my teammates,” said Ken Winters, one of those sidelined. He broke a finger while pitching and is out for the season, but he was still in the dugout Thursday as the team faced Issaquah. “I love the people we play. Its just so much fun.”
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