A joyful group of Island seasonal and year-round residents cavorted — well, jogged mostly — around Pasture Field in Chilmark last Sunday morning in an engaging and offbeat version of America’s pastime.
Whoops of laughter enlivened a sunny morning as 60- and 70somethings, dotted with a few 20somethings and at least one 11-year-old, took the field in the Island’s oldest continuous traveling softball league.
The players tell you that the game is played for the joy of it, for camaraderie and fellowship, a community event that involves two or three generations of families in the 83-year-old Island institution,
Focus on “offbeat” here. The Chilmark Softball League (CSL) doesn’t have teams, it has people who show up, often enough to play three games on a Sunday morning. Teams are selected on an ad hoc basis. Players toss their gloves into a pile. The pile is then separated into two smaller piles. “You find your glove, and that’s the team you’re on,” league commissioner Bill Edison said on Sunday afternoon.
Mr. Edison described himself as a self-appointed commissioner. It’s a fun title, he said. “Actually, all I do is help get the field ready and post information on Facebook,” he said.
Mr. Edison, 87, has been in the league for nearly 60 years as a player and its culture keeper. As noted in an article written almost a decade ago for Martha’s Vineyard magazine by national sportswriter Jim Kaplan, the league has hosted hundreds of Islanders, visitors, and a pocketful of celebrities.
Spike Lee, Robert Crichton, and Roger Baldwin have all stepped between the often lumpy lines to play in the CSL. Hall of Famer Jackie Robinson did not. Let Mr. Edison tell the story:
“I was pitching one Sunday, probably I was in my 40s, and I had two down in the ninth. A little wimpy guy was up next, and I needed one more out to win the game. This big, strapping African-American guy had just shown up, and someone shouted, ‘Put him in as a pinch hitter.’ I objected. I wanted to win, and he looked like he could hit. Only later I learned that the guy was Jackie Robinson. That man was my hero. It would have been a proud moment for me if I gave up a game-winning home run to Jackie Robinson. I mellowed after that.”
The CSL is mellow today. An old-timey chalk scoreboard carries a partially recorded score of a game sometime in the past.
After modest beginnings in a back lot behind Dave Flanders’ house in the 1930s, the CSL moved to a larger field in the 1960s behind Muriel Toomey’s house on the road to Aquinnah, later to the West Tisbury Elementary School, and now to its current site off Pasture Road in Chilmark. The league has expressed several personalities from competitive to mellow.
“In the beginning, it was loose, few rules, then went through a competitive period, with arguments and tension,” Mr. Edison said. “About 10 years ago, Bill Meegan and I moved it to Flanders Field. We named it after Dave Flanders. Dave got me started in the league. He was a great player, had a tryout with the Boston Red Sox,”
On Sunday morning, it was pretty clear the Red Sox weren’t missing any prospects — although shortstop Jerry Murphy showed a cannon of an arm — and it’s also a safe bet that a bunch of major league millionaires were not as happy playing the game on Sunday as these ballplayers are.
Paul Iantosca, a Boston neighborhood guy and a summer seasonal resident, seemed as pleased about his red CSL hat and T shirt as he is with his successful real estate development company.
“If you show up consistently for a year, you get this hat. Show up a second year, you get the T shirt,” the gregarious, though not fleet-footed, player said.
“I knew about the league for 35 years, but I never came because I thought they would be too good for me. Five years ago, I came and said to myself, I can play with these guys,” he said.
Alex Balaban remembered times as a kid with his dad, Dan Balaban, who played into his 80s. “He started at 16, so that’s almost 70 years,” he said. Beside him, daughter Sophie Balaban was resting after running her game-day lemonade stand, which raises money for the Martha’s Vineyard Animal Shelter.
The stories went on. About the time the U.S. Coast Guard played in the league until the morning a boat ran aground. Where’s the Coast Guard? Famed puppeteer Bil Baird trotted off his Chilmark porch to tow the boat off. “That was the end of the Coast Guard at our games,” Mr. Edison said.
Two players made their debut on Sunday: Larry Feig of Newton is a veteran of the EMass Senior Softball League, while 11-year-old Alex Sonnenthal, visiting from Berlin, Germany, lined a single in his first CSL at-bat.
Joel “Rocky” Bleier was there. Honey Heller, as she has for many summer Sundays, jogged from the homestead to support husband Keith Heller. Howie Bromberg, for whom the annual “Howie Hustle Award” is named, was in the house. Longtime player Peter Simon was not, but Zachery Graves-Miller won the “Shoeless Peter Simon Award” for playing in bare feet.
The closest thing to conflict occurred when no one could recall who was supposed to lead off an inning. It was resolved when a player grabbed a bat and strode to the plate, as most observers watched a pair of magnificent Belgian horses stroll past on the road just behind right field.
Arlen Roth pitched awhile for both teams. Noting the mix of friendship, camaraderie, and generational interaction, the noted Island musician said, “This is unbelievable. It’s the ultimate level playing field.”