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For 77-year-old Price, softball is just right
AUSTINTOWN
Jim Price understands how precious the game of life is.
Four months after retiring from General Motors in June 1994, his wife passed away.
“That’s when I really started playing,” Price said of using slow-pitch softball as an outlet to occupy his time and his mind.
Not only was it therapy, but it was also the beginning of his senior softball-playing days, which, so far, have produced 12 national championships.
“I’m still having fun doing it,” said the 77-year-old Price of Austintown.
Price first played fast-pitch softball in a church league in his teens, then, after military service (1955-59), he returned to fast pitch.
When he began working at GM, he joined a slow pitch team through work.
His UAW 1112 squad won the ASA national championship in Aurora, Colo., in 1992.
“We were the first 50-and-over national champs in slow pitch,” Price said of the division’s inaugural designation.
“We just played a heck of a tournament and didn’t pick guys up from all over the country,” Price said of the team roster of mostly GM workers.
Price retired in 1994 at age 58.
“I got a deal I couldn’t refuse,” he said of his retirement package. “The kids were gone, the house was paid for, so my wife said ‘Let’s do it.’
“Then she passed away four months later. I started playing a lot of ball to keep busy,” he said of days when he’d play at 6 in Akron, then in Bedford Heights at 9.
In addition to the ASA national crown, Price has been a part of 11 other national senior-age title teams under various organizations including the Softball Players Association.
Price has played for the Akron Silver Masters and Cleveland 65s, as well as teams in Florida where he spends time from late December through mid-April.
However, the 1994 UAW 1112 championship holds a special place.
“The first is always the biggest,” said Price, an outfielder.
The UAW 1112 team returned to Colorado one more year, but didn’t do as well.
“A lot of guys retired,” Price said of the change in team makeup after 1994.
Within the same year — 2005 — Price was on two national championship teams in different age groups: Akron (60-over) and Cleveland (65-over).
His 70-over team in Florida lost in the last of the seventh inning or “I would have won in three different age groups in one year,” said Price, who played every inning.
A 70-year-old could choose to “play down” a division or two, such as 65-over or younger.
“You can’t play up, but, usually when you play down it’s because most of your friends are younger.”
He was also on national championship teams in 2007 (at age 72) and in 2011 at 76 as a pickup player.
He said the senior leagues in the Akron-Barberton area comprise several hundred men in divisions starting with 46-54.
If not conditioned properly, it would be unwise for someone in his mid-60s to suddenly jump on the softball field on a whim.
“I’d be worried about the first time I hit the ball and took off towards first base, then grab a leg because of a pulled muscle or worse,” Price said. “But I never quit doing it.”
Price has had injuries, like a heel spur in Florida last winter, but he had players run for him in non-tournament games.
“It keeps guys [those who can’t run but still want to play] in the game. In Barberton, those guys are way older than me play [in league],” he said of a few over 85.
But there’s a downside, too.
This summer, his team ran out of players due to health problems.
“We didn’t have enough guys to get there because a couple had heart problems and eye problems. When you get this age, reality sets in.”
Another danger is the speed of batted balls.
“The ball flies off of them,” Price said of composite bats. “It’s just like the technology in golf clubs and how much farther balls can be hit; same with composite bats: you see guys 70-years-old hitting over 300-foot fences.”