Geezers in Arizona

Here in Arizona, us geezers like it hard and loud!


Softball isn't so soft, after all
Aug. 4, 2004 12:00 AM
Somewhere - and we're not saying it's Del Mar or Phoenix Greyhound Park - Pete Rose is smiling. (And maybe yelling, "Run, baby, run!") Rose has many claims to fame, one of them coming in the 1970 All-Star Game when he crashed into Ray Fosse at home plate, and the catcher was never the same. It was the kind of game-within-a-game battle that Rose loved, and it probably influenced players from Little League to the geezer league in Sun City to see if they could make baseball or softball a contact sport.Now, decades later, Rose's body slam is making news again.A 44-year-old catcher on a slow-pitch team in Garden City, Long Island, sued a 39-year-old for bowling him over at home plate and breaking his leg, violating the "Pete Rose Rule" that prohibits this kind of mayhem - and when's the last time you saw a player get ejected or fined for crashing into the guy wearing the tools of ignorance?It took more than 2 1/2 years for the case to make its way through the system, and the jury ruled that the action in the game was fair, the gang from the True Stella Awards, who tracks these kind of things, reports.The mouthpiece for the hard-charging runner crowed, "Now you don't have to tell your kids that they can't play sports in this country."The only drawback Heat sees in this ruling is that slow-pitch softball may never be the same. How can a catcher expect to hold a can of beer, pop a pretzel in his mouth and tag someone if he has to worry about getting knocked into next week?