Chicago Tribune from Chicago, Illinois • 59

j. i ji -y- j-i-r-u I -r-i r-i-r y. li J1 tJr Jl 1 LJ It Jl T11l311JI3v Section 6 Friday. Juhe 13, 1980 i Classified in this section I. tv i ir 1 whether played In Grant Park or In a neighborhood sandlot, is Chicago's game.

Softball and Chicago: a long-running love affair I .4 I For stories on Chicago's most successful softball team and most feared slugger, turn to page 5. V'i TflPwr, V' Vt the fielders do not wear gloves. The farther from the Loop, the smaller the ball. In most of the suburbs, 12-inch slow-pitch is growing in popularity, and in the far west suburbs there is 14-inch slow-pitch and 12-inch fast-pitch. Women's slow-pitch teams in some suburbs are using an 11-inch ball for the first time.

In some suburbs, transplanted city residents have brought the 16-inch ball. Grant Park, with more than 20 diamonds and overlapping outfields, is the largest gathering place. It is the location for many of the city's industrial leagues and other specialty groups from the Loop. "We get 'em all," said Buddy Haines, Grant Park softball director. "We've got insurance leagues, CTA leagues, police leagues, lawyers, brokers, department stores, secretaries, everybody, and there's long waiting lists for more to play here.

One day of rain and it's murder trying to make up games with the tight scheduling" we have to do." THE CALIBER of Grant Park play generally is good, but it is in the small, obscure parks like Clarendon and Kelly where the top teams prefer to compete. It is here, where there is only one lighted Uv At By Mike Conklin IT IS 4 O'CLOCK on a weekday summer afternoon, bewitching hour for Chicago Softball players. At the prestigious Loop law firm of Lord, Bissell, Brook, an attorney who Slays in three leagues begins thinking a ttle less about depositions and a little more of home runs and runs batted in. At St. Bernard's Hospital on the South Side, an employe who manages and plays In four leagues starts forgetting about supply -orders and tries to remember where his team is playing that night.

An assembly line worker for the Campbell Soup Co. is counting the minutes 4:30, when he can hustle to his car' and try to beat the traffic to a North Side park. The alarm clock goes off in a west suburban bungalow. A policeman who works the night shift awakens, shakes the cobwebs from his head, and starts fumbling for his spikes and bat. IT IS THE same with thousands of Chlcagoans every weekday.

The occupations, locations, sexes, ages, and races vary, but when the late-afternoon hours come, it is time to start concentrating on softbalL Like lemmings headed for the sea, they stream from offices, schools, apartments, newspapers, post offices, garages, every place imaginable and congregate at any one of hundreds of parks in the area. They change in restrooms and cars, or behind trees. Within an hour after they leave their jobs, they've made the transformation from worker to ballplayer. It has been this way for decades in Chicago, where an estimated 5,000 teams and more than 100,000 persons play soft-ball every summer. "Our fields are going full blast all the time," said Ed Kelly, Park District superintendent "There's got to be more people playing now than ever before." The reasons why Chicagoans play exercise, challenge, camaraderie, competition, an excuse to get out of the house, postgame imbibing, love of the game are as varied as what they play.

IN THE CITY, the most popular form Is 16-inch slow-pitch, where the ball is served up in slow, arched deliveries and "Softball is a game for women as well as men. Continued oa page 4 No gloves are used in 1 6-inch softball A 1 i j4 V- 'jr. J. t- uu 1 THburw phom by Edwwd MgMr Jb It's close plays like this that make Chicago softball a big attraction. As many as a thousand spectators watch Important games.

As an Aero, Pagel's not dynamic a- fJT" K' -y By Mike Kiley CNctgo Tribun Pnu Snvlc WICHITA-Karl Pagel is gingerly resting his bad back on a rickety bullpen bench. As tenderly as he treats it, however, he takes infinitely more care on this afternoon in early June in discussing the nagging conflicts In his mind. As always, Pagel Is congenial as he tries to downplay his forced, and, for some, unexpected' exile from the Chicago Cubs to the Wichita Aeros. He speaks with a confidence befitting the player who was chosen best in the minor leagues for 1979. "At first I was disappointed," he says about failing to make the Cub roster this spring, "but playing in the minors is tough enough without being upset.

Life is full of setbacks." He is so confident that he almost sounds convincing when he says he has learned to cope with the frustration and converted into a positive experience. But the self-assurance that is so typical of him has a hollow ring. "I am not unhappy being here, I'm adjust days after he was told to come back, extremely disappointed." The look in her eyes meant his reaction defied full description. Pagel would not be that extreme tn recalling the incident for an outsider. "I think it is better never to show emotion," he says.

"I like to think of my life as a straight line" here he raises his hand and moves it horizontally "a flattened out thing, regardless of it being an up or down time. "I have seen players do a Dr. Jekyll-and-Mr. Hyde. When things are going right they couldn't be nicer.

But let something go wrong and they turn into different people. I don't want to be like that. I can cope with my problems and I can be straight-headed when things are on the upswing." At the same time, Pagel can be prompted to admit that ''this is one of the lowest times I ever I was so close to making it. Yes, I said in the spring that I would rather sit on the Cub bench than come back here, but I think the Cubs made the right move. I said that because Continued oa page I able," he says, "but, no, you couldn't say I was content Yes, this is one of the lowest points in my life.

Because I was so close. So close." Now, for the first time in his brilliant athletic career, Pagel is having trouble meeting a challenge. A shoulder injury put him on the disabled list in April. Then, in May, back spasms sidelined him until early June. He has missed 21 games.

Pagel did not fare well in the 31 games played before his back injury. He hit a meager. .244, striking out 33 times in 107 at-bats. In the past a prolific home-run hitter, he hit only four In the first two months of the season. If there is a positive side to his year, it would be his play at first base, where he ha committed only one error.

The Cubs have virtually shelved their attempt to make the slow-footed, weak-armed Pagel an outfielder. PAGEL'S WIFE Cindy says she doesnt care In the least if "I am ever a major-league wife, but I do care that Karl becomes a major leaguer. I was hurt having to come back here only because Karl was hurt. He was shot for Karl Paget Is struggling in Wichita this season. 1 tut, i ifj n.ji.t t.l.

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