Category All Art Classes Classical Music Concerts DANCE Etc Exhibits Families Farmers Markets Film Happenings Holiday Holiday Lectures Music (non-classical) Theater

Submit events

AT HOME. Bob Young and wife Patti have built a life that includes a some great trophies, including a great view of Puget Sound. Now Bob has a new trophy.

A Trophy Life

At 67, Bob Young has a great life, a loving family, a good retirement plan, and his health. He also still plays a sport he has played every summer for 55 years. He didn’t think life could get any better. It just did.

By Rick Walter

You can see for miles. You can see islands in the distance, fishing vessels large and small on the waters of Puget Sound, the ferry to Vashon Island, the Olympic mountain range. You have this view from the deck of your home and you never tire of it, and can predict the first two words to come out of the mouth of anyone walking into your home for the first time. Nice view.

But on July 15, you are about 800 miles away from your home in Tacoma. You are at a ceremony, standing in the middle of a softball diamond in Salt Lake City, Utah, looking out at your wife, your kids, your grandchildren, becoming the first senior softball player from Pierce County to be inducted into the National Senior Softball Hall of Fame.

You have spent 56 of your summers on baseball and softball diamonds – every summer since 1952 – since before there was a major-league baseball team west of St. Louis. No Mariners, no Dodgers, no Giants, no Angels, no Padres. There was a minor league team in Tacoma called the Tigers and you and the other members of the knothole gang would pay a nickel to see them every time they played.

“I was hooked. I don’t know what makes a person passionate about something,” said 67-year-old Bob Young in an interview before leaving for Salt Lake City for his induction ceremony. “But I know, myself, and some of these other guys out here doing this, it’s pure passion. And getting this award, well, it is impossible to describe.”

Bob Young, a retired Teamster Union Official and part owner of Joeseppi’s Italian Ristorante, is one of about 35,000 men and women who play in the highly organized, traveling leagues under Senior Softball USA membership. Young is one of nine who were, or will be, inducted into the national hall of fame the 2008 season. He will be the first to tell you, there is no way this happens if you don’t play on good teams.

“You could have all these gigantic numbers,” he said, “but if your team doesn’t win championships, nobody is going to pay any attention.”

About the numbers. Between 1965 and 1975, Young played for a team in Tacoma called the Heidelberg Brewery. They played more than 1,000 games and won 85 percent of them. That team qualified for seven national tournaments. Young was selected to the all-tournament team one year, hitting .700 with a wooden bat. In regional competitions he has been selected to 50 all-tournament teams and been the most valuable player nine times.

In 1996, Young retired from the Teamsters after being president of his local in Tacoma and representing 3,000 members. It seemed like a good time to resume his softball playing and he joined his first senior team in the Pierce County Parks Department 55-and over slow-pitch league. His teams would ultimately win the world championships in six of the next 12 years, at one point compiling a 99-1 record. In 1999, when he moved into the 60-plus division, he was selected first-team all-tournament with a .836 batting average. And the beat went on. In 2005 Young’s team, First American Title, won the Western National Championship and has continued to pile up tournament championships as Young continues to stroke the ball, hitting in the .800 range.

Young has learned a few things during his senior career. Don’t take good health or good buddies for granted. (Senior Softball USA might be the only sports organization with a link to obituaries on the home page of its website). Every day you get to hit a pitch or catch a ball on a gorgeous summer day is a blessing. And never slide.

“I have been very lucky keeping away from injuries. And I try to keep my weight down,” he said. “I don’t take too many risks out there. Some of these guys, even in their 60s and 70s, are really still very competitive. Fierce.”

In 1996, the Olympic Torch Relay came through Tacoma on its way to Atlanta, and stopped for 30 minutes at 15th and Pacific Avenue. After carrying the Olympic Torch, Young delivered a speech representing all 27 torchbearers, about what the experience meant to him.

“After the big two (marriage to Patti and the birth of his daughter, Sharon), that was right up there.”

But this hall-of-fame induction, it has nudged the Torch speech down a notch.

“It is just the most wonderful feeling. [It] isn’t anything you can put into words.”

Young’s wife, Patti, his daughter, Sharon, and his grandchildren Jake (who plays baseball for Bellarmine Prep) and Haley Dusek were there to witness the moment, and Young says it wouldn’t have meant anything, otherwise.

Haley, coincidentally was in Salt Lake City with her American Softball Association team Xtreme 94, to compete in the 14-and-under championship, while her grandfather’s team was participating in his league’s Western championship.

“I could have had a couple of options for where this ceremony took place, but when I realized that Haley was playing in a championship here at the same time, that was really special.”

And the view from the field in Salt Lake City – of his family watching him as he received his hall-of-fame plaque from Chief Executive Officer Terry Hennessy of Senior Softball-USA – was as glorious as the view from his deck back home.

Story Tools