softball stories

dug out of the observer's archives




THE CHARLOTTE OBSERVER
LEGENDARY PROMOTER HOWARD DIES AT 73
Wednesday, April 29, 1998
Section: SPORTS
Edition: TWO\-3
Page: 1B
By STAN OLSON and JIM UTTER, Staff Writers
Memo: A version of this story also ran on page 1B in edition 1.

Illustration: Photo-2

Caption: File photos: 1. Richard Howard in 1979. He built a softball power and may have saved Charlotte Motor Speedway. 2. Richard Howard watches his softball team play in 1980. ``His two loves were racing and softball; they were the two things that consumed most of his life,'' said his son Rick.

Richard Howard, who built a number of thriving businesses with intellect and savvy but who saved his heart for sports, died Tuesday.

Howard, 73, was perhaps best-known for his powerhouse slow-pitch softball teams that won four American Softball Association national championships in the 1970s and early '80s. But he also may have saved Charlotte Motor Speedway when the facility went bankrupt.


``His two loves were racing and softball; they were the two things that consumed most of his life,'' said son Rick Howard.
Richard Howard took over as the speedway's general manager in 1963 when it was $1 million in debt and on the auction block. He steered it through a Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization, paying off the speedway's mortgage in 1966. He ran the track until resigning Jan. 30, 1976, after current CMS president Bruton Smith gained controlling interest in the speedway's stock.

But Howard later would call his 12 years as president of CMS ``the greatest years in my life.''

H.A. ``Humpy'' Wheeler, who replaced Howard as track president, said, ``He was certainly a significant part of Charlotte Motor Speedway's history. His contributions and leadership helped give us the foundation to grow to where we are today.''

Howard's resignation in 1976 ended a four-year struggle with Smith for the speedway's control. But even after Howard's resignation, he and Smith remained friends and Howard served as a consultant on races for several years.

He was instrumental in building NASCAR's success, especially in promoting races, which earned him the nickname, ``The P.T. Barnum of Auto Racing.''

In 1971, Howard helped bring a competitive Chevrolet back to stock car racing, after the automotive company dropped sponsorship of race cars.

Howard encouraged Junior Johnson to build a Chevrolet car, Charlie Glotzbach drove it, and the car won the pole for the World 600 in Charlotte. It led most of the way until getting involved in an accident, but the car's success brought legions of Chevrolet fans back to racing.

He also was the first promoter to pay $10,000 to pole winners, and he negotiated the first network television coverage of a major stock car race.

''He was a good promoter,'' said Dick Thompson, vice president for corporate communications at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway. ``He was always coming up with new ideas. I think he would be outstanding even today.''

But even as he was being pushed away from racing, another sport was capturing his attention. Howard had always loved slow-pitch softball, sponsoring and pitching for the Mount Pleasant United Methodist Church team back in the early 1950s.

By the early '70s, what had been a diversion had become a passion.

In 1969, Howard had taken his team - by then Howard's Furniture - to its first American Softball Association national tournament, in Seattle. It was a rude awakening; Howard's was eliminated in two quick games.

``We got out of one side of the car, played two games, got back in the other side of the car and left,'' he said later. ``I said, If we go back, we're going to make a little better showing.' ``

By 1973, he had won his first ASA national title.

Howard had developed an outstanding team by drawing the best players from around his home in tiny Denver. Early stars such as Don Arndt and Stan Harvey made the Howard's team competitive with any in the nation.

But Howard wasn't satisfied. He became one of the first sponsors to begin actively recruiting top players, scouring the country for big sturdy men who could hit softballs incredible distances. He would offer them jobs with one of his many companies, but he was proud he never paid them simply to play softball.

Instead, he took them into his ``family.''

``He was in the first wave of those guys who went out and recruited players, but he was more than that,'' said longtime ASA North Carolina commissioner Bert Weeks. ``I used to think of his teams as the Harlem Globetrotters of slow pitch softball. Richard would play anywhere to promote softball.

``He'd get his team on a plane, and they'd dress in the car on the way to the park if it was a good cause. He'd do anything to help churches raise money.''

``He was a great sponsor; he really took care of the players,'' said Bobby Lutz Sr., who coached Howard's team for 17 years. ``He let 'em take their wives and family to the tournaments, and he'd pay their motel bills.''

Just traveling to tournaments, though, wasn't enough. Howard actually built his own softball field in the backyard of his brick home in Denver. He would host world-class tournaments there, and folks would come from miles around to watch softballs crash off the tin roof of the furniture warehouse that stood beyond the left-center field fence.

Weeks remembers a 15-game event there in which more than 800 home runs were hit.

And Howard was always trying to make his team better. Sponsors of the top teams often decided the sport was too expensive, and when a club would break up, there would be Howard, telling the best players about the good life over in Denver.

Eventually, he would win four ASA national titles (1973, '74, '81 and '84) and several more in other divisions. His trophies include the national junior boys (age 16-18) crown in '73 and the women's title in 1980.

His businesses prospered as well.

After leaving CMS, he continued to turn ``Mom and Pop's'' restaurants and Western Steer steak houses into successful chains; built on the success of Howard's Furniture stores; dabbled in real estate; and started a restaurant equipment business and several bowling alleys.

In his later years, family members drifted away from the softball organization one by one. And finally, after the 1988 season, Howard turned away from softball in a sense to return to that family. He wanted to spend more time with his eight grandchildren.

``To him, softball had always been a family affair,'' said Bobby Lutz Jr., UNC Charlotte basketball coach and Howard's nephew. ``After I had gotten out and my dad had gotten out and so many of the others had left, I think it lost some of its appeal for him. It stopped being fun. He started spending more time with the grandkids at the beach.''

They still store furniture in the huge warehouse beyond the center field fence in Howard's backyard, but the bats are silent now. The dents in the tin roof remain. There are thousands of them, each one made by a home run.

And each of those dents is a silent testament to Richard Howard.

Howard's funeral will be 3 p.m. Thursday at Mount Pleasant United Methodist Church in Sherrills Ford. Visitation is 6 to 8:30 tonight at Cavin Funeral Home in Mooresville.

He is survived by his wife, Eathel; sons, Rick Howard and Douglas Howard; daughter, Donna Jo Helderman; brother, Emmitt Howard; sisters, Ruth Mundy and Janice Lutz; eight grandchildren; and several nieces and nephews.

In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to Mount Pleasant United Methodist Church, 4136 Mount Pleasant Road, Sherrills Ford, NC 28673.

 

part II

THE CHARLOTTE OBSERVER
ALLISON ASSEMBLES WORLD-CLASS ACT
TRAVELING MEN'S SOFTBALL TEAM IS ONE OF NATION'S BEST
Wednesday, June 18, 1997
Section: SPORTS
Edition: ONE\-3
Page: 1B
By STAN OLSON, Staff Writer
Illustration: Photo

Caption: Staff photo by T. ORTEGA GAINES: Jim Allison's teams have accumulated a crowd of trophies.


It has been more than a decade since Richard Howard stepped away from sponsorship of big-time slow-pitch softball, ending an era that made this area home to some of the best teams the sport ever had.

Now Jim Allison is trying to fill the breech.


Allison, who owns Charlotte's Allison Construction Co., is rapidly building his Allison/Bombat Class AA Major team into one of the nation's best. Last season, just the team's second at such a high level of competition, Allison/Bombat won the International Softball Association's Class A winter national championship in Auburndale, Fla.
That didn't make Allison/Bombat the best team in the land; in this sprawling sport, there are many classifications and national titles.

Above Class A, there is Class AA Major. Higher still is an elite group of tournaments - 10 or 12 a year - called the Super Majors. That is where the giants play.

Allison/Bombat plays in AA Major and occasional Super Major tournaments. The team finished a surprising second in the Amateur Softball Association Spring Open National Qualifier in May.

On deck for the squad is the prestigious Smoky Mountain Classic, set for Maryville, Tenn., July 11-13. The Super Major event is considered by some the sport's premier tournament.

The team has much to overcome to reach that Super Major level consistently, primarily because the really big boys pay their players, while Jim Allison's guys still play for the clank of the bat and the love of the game.

``I've heard of guys being paid up to $100,000 a season to play,'' Allison said recently. ``But something like $200 a tournament is more realistic.''

Top players, of course, also get their equipment and expenses paid, and many have jobs with their team's sponsoring company. Super Major teams - there are perhaps a half-dozen - may have budgets approaching $500,000.

Allison's budget is about $20,000 annually. He springs for tournament fees, softballs and hotel rooms, and takes his players out to dinner occasionally as well. Bombat, located nearby in Faith, provides equipment. If the team keeps winning, though, the company might decide to do more, such as flying the players to a major tournament or two.

``A lot of major players that get paid, they're there as a job,'' Allison said. ``They don't have the same heart as we've got. We're like a family and we want to win, and that's why we win.''

Allison's 12 players come from all over North Carolina, usually driving from their homes to meet at tournament sites.

They include brick masons from Aberdeen, farmers from Salisbury and Burlington and a mechanic from China Grove. And they're not all the big, burly, slow-footed mashers of old; with the evolution of metal bats toward new alloys, even the little guys can reach the fences now. Because of that, most have been moved back from 280 to 300 feet.

Of course, some of the big guys remain. Like 6-foot-1, 280-pound David ``Pondmonster'' Lyles.

``He's the most feared hitter there is to a pitcher,'' Allison said. ``He crushed one pitcher's glasses and he needed 52 stitches; we had to call an ambulance.

``David lives and breathes softball. His answering machine says, I'm not home right now, I'm probably playing ball.' ``

Lyles is 41, and has been playing softball for 22 years.

``My wife says she'd rather see me on a ball field than in a bar anytime,'' Lyles said. ``We've been beating some real good teams, embarrassing them. And this is not a money team - our guys don't ask for gas money or nothing. They just love to play.''

This has all been something of a sudden ride for Allison. He started playing baseball as a 5-year-old, giving the older kids a nickel so they would let him hit. He played softball as an adult, but organized his own team less than 10 years ago, a Class D bunch that played in a city league.

His team moved to Class C in 1989 and won a triple crown of top events. That prompted the folks who ran the show to insist Allison's squad move to Class B.

``We didn't want to; we felt we had a good C team capable of winning the world, but that we would be a low B team,'' Allison said. He would soon go higher.

Three years ago, some members of Leroy's Frame, a Class A team from Greenville, S.C., that was having financial problems, talked Allison into moving into the Class A program. He began gathering players from teams like Leroy's that had folded and from other sources. And Allison's quickly became one of the strongest A teams in the Carolinas.

The step up to AA Major recently followed.

Allison/Bombat is not on the level of the Denver, N.C.-based Howard Furniture powerhouses yet - those teams won various national championships in 1973, '74, '81, '83 and '84. But Lyles said Allison/Bombat is the best he's ever played for in 22 years in the higher leagues. And better things might lie ahead.

``We had not heard much about them,'' said Ron Babb, ASA director of communications. ``But that's a quality ball team. And it looks like they've got their sights set on bigger things.''

 

part III

THE CHARLOTTE OBSERVER
KING OF SWING
BERT SMITH RODE HIS SOFTBALL EXPLOITS THROUGH CHILDHOOD, THE VIETNAM WAR AND WELL INTO HIS ADULT LIFE. NOW HE'S RIDING IT INTO THE HALL OF FAME.

Thursday, July 21, 1994
Section: SPORTS
Edition: ONE - FOUR
Page: 1B
By LEONARD LAYE, Sports Editor


Memo: An info box appears at the end of this story



Illustration: photo-2



Caption: 1. Special to The Observer / On a string: Bert Smith once told his teammates he pictured the ball hanging on a string every time it left the pitcher's hand. He hit more than 4,000 home runs during his 10-year softball career. 2. Staff photo by CHRISTOPHER A. RECORD: Highest honor: Bert Smith, with his hall of fame trophy already in hand, will be inducted Saturday in Oklahoma City.




The F-104 Starfighter jet buzzed Tai Chung, Taiwan, a thundering symbol of the Vietnam War that in 1968 was raging thousands of miles from Bert Smith's New York home.

Smith, 23, an Air Force avionics maintenance specialist, knew all too well the fear and tragedy that went to war with the United States.


But he had found a way to temporarily escape on the softball field.
While jets passed overhead, Smith was slamming softballs across 230-foot fences, prolonging a passion that began consuming him as a youngster, followed him through a home run-laced career and Saturday will take him into the Amateur Softball Association's Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City.

Smith, now 49, spent 1973 through '76 playing center field for Howard's Furniture in Denver, N.C.

Using a high-kick hitting style, he was most valuable player in the Men's Open National Tournament a record three times in an eight-year span.

``He always cocked that foot up and we were pretty sure he was going to give you a home run,'' said Richard Howard, who sponsored Smith's team in Denver. ``Usually, he did.''

During a 10-year career at the top level of the game, he drilled more than 4,000 home runs. Once, in a 1973 Dixie Tournament game in Chattanooga, he had 31 hits - 27 of them homers - in 33 at-bats for Howard's.

Smith now lives in Charlotte with his wife, Martha, and teenage sons Drew and Danny, and is an independent contractor in cellular telephone sales.

Once consumed by an unquenchable appetite for success at the plate, he has long since retired from the 100-game-per-year pace and settled into a different lifestyle. Yet softball has never been far away - he has played in Charlotte recreational leagues in past seasons and says he is anxious to pick up a bat again next year in a local 50-and-over league.

``What it was for us, it was an ego-driven game,'' Smith said. ``Who's the biggest man on the block? Who can hit it over the fence the most?

``Back then I was totally focused on softball. Nothing bothered me. You could spit in my face and I'd still knock it out of the park.''

Dennis Punch, a former Howard's teammate, agreed.

``Bert told us one time he visualized the ball in front of him, hanging on a string, every time the pitcher threw a pitch,'' Punch said. ``It was like hitting it off a tee. He was so focused, he just pictured it hanging there in front of him.

``Fans came to see him. Wherever we would go, half of them would come because they couldn't believe some of the statistics he put up. And the other half had seen him and came to get on him because he was so good.''

*

More than softball

Smith said he eventually began to lose some of his intensity.

``I began to realize that softball on the amateur level is nothing more than a recreational vehicle,'' Smith said.

``That's what it's all about. There is somebody living among you who at one time was the best softball player in the United States, bar none. Not too many people know it, not too many people knew about it then.

``But recreation is what it's all about. It creates friends, relationships, it helped me become a Christian. I want people to understand how I am today, to take the light off me and put it on the people around me, the people who helped me.''

Smith admits that approach is far different from the one that pushed him early. Some who came to know him say the same.

``He was just a very flamboyant player,'' said Bill Plummer, a former New York sportswriter and now director of public relations for the ASA. ``He would tell you he was good, and he'd back it up. He delivered.''

``Nobody could go against his numbers,'' said Rick Howard of Denver, who watched Smith play for his father's team. `` . . . We probably had eight or 10 of the greatest players who played the game over 32 years, from the mid-'50s to the late '80s. There was no one better in the big games.''

That was once what Smith lived for, starting in the park across the street from his Long Island home where home runs first came ripping off his bat, where his teenage teammates included Jim Valvano, the late basketball coach at N.C. State.

And it was Smith's vehicle of escape in Taiwan on those days he left his Air Force base on the 40-minute trip to the makeshift softball field in Tai Chung.

*

Raining home runs

Most of Smith's wartime home runs landed with a thud in water-soaked rice patties just beyond the 4-foot bamboo outfield fences. His power swings, delivered from that stance with his leg kicked high in the air, captivated the Chinese Nationalists who made up opposing teams and produced a new nickname of Da-shin-shin - Big Monkey.

A Taiwanese man of slight build whose home sat behind the left-field fence may have used other names. Smith's home runs glanced off the slate roof of his house.

``This guy came out with a crab net trying to catch my home runs because I was knocking the roof off his house,'' said Smith.

Smith began playing recreational baseball at age 6, then added softball when the park was built near his home. He adopted his high-kick style as a teenager, trying it as a copy of former National League batting champion Mel Ott's style, then keeping it as he discovered what it did for his game.

``I found that by bringing my left foot up I got tremendous backspin on the ball, which of course increased my batting power,'' said Smith. ``The higher I raised my leg, the harder I hit the ball.''

Unsure what direction his life should take after his father died while Smith was in high school, he turned down a tryout invitation from the Baltimore Orioles. A short time later, he got a chance to play for softball legend Doc Linnehan, who managed some of the best teams in the country, and soon found Linnehan becoming a father figure.

Smith joined Howard's Furniture in 1973, living in Charlotte, teaching at West Charlotte High and commuting to Denver for home games or going out of town for tournaments. That season, Richard Howard's team won its first national championship, with Smith hitting .735 with 21 home runs.

``In Richard we had the ultimate promoter. And our manager, Bobby Lutz, always kept his cool. He was the quiet man on the bench who let us know who really was the boss. Because here we were, a bunch of big, strutting egos, and here he was, a humble guy.

``What a lesson. I look back now and realize just how much those people affected my life.''

Howard's Furniture continued fielding teams into the '80s and another of its players, Richard Wilburn, is among the players to be inducted with Smith this year into the hall of fame.

But Smith didn't stay to the end, choosing instead after the 1976 season to turn pro and play with a team in Detroit. After three years there, he retired and returned to Charlotte.

``I would love to be out there,'' he said. ``I haven't picked up a bat this summer and I know I could go out there and hit. But what for? . . .

``I paid a price for it. Family, friendships, no roots. I envy people like Richard Howard who have roots. So I wasn't getting paid for it. I did it because I wanted to be the big cock on the walk. Then it hit me in '80 what was really important.''

Smith is sure moments from the past will come flooding back during Saturday's induction, teasing him, perhaps making him yearn for days that will never come again. He said he just wants to keep it in perspective.

``The relationships I've gained, those are more meaningful than hitting 21 home runs in a national tournament. Because that record, fleeting as it was, was just a record. Who cares?

``When I die, will people say he could really hit the softball? Or will people say he was a really great guy who did a lot for other people?''

*

Smash-hit seasons

Bert Smith's statistics with Howard's Furniture:

Year AB R H HR Avg.

1973 487 326 338 218 .694

1974 488 271 287 148 .588

1975 573 390 382 231 .667

1976 497 317 329 177 .662

Total 2405 1304 1336 774 .653

Smith's statistics in the men's Open National tournaments:

Year Team, Finish

AB R H HR Avg.

1968 County Sports (N.Y.), 1st 37 19 23 11 .622

1969 County Sports (N.Y.), 4th 34 20 22 14 .647

1970 County Sports (N.Y.), 13th 15 7 9 4 .600

1971 Va. Beach Piledrivers, 1st 22 14 15 7 .682

1972 Va. Beach Piledrivers, 24th 14 11 10 4 .714

1973 Howard's Furniture, 1st 34 28 25 21 .735

1974 Howard's Furniture, 1st 32 14 17 4 .531

1975 Howard's Furniture, 3rd 32 14 17 4 .531

1976 Howard's Furniture, 10th 19 11 10 5 .526

Totals 395 138 148 74 .669

 

part IV

THE CHARLOTTE OBSERVER
HOME-RUN KING RULES DIAMOND
Wednesday, August 11, 1993
Section: GASTON OBSERVER
Edition: FOUR
Page: 6
By BRETT JENSEN, Staff Writer


Memo: An information box appears at the end of this article.



Illustration: Photo



Caption: Bates




When you've hit more than 18,000 home runs in your 33-year softball career, you might expect to win a home run derby or two.

But when you're 53 years old and just beat some of the area's best hitters, most of whom are 20 to 30 years your junior?


That's what Gastonia's Bobby Bates did Thursday when he out-hit 47 other contestants in the Third Annual Pharr Park Home Run Derby in McAdenville.
Bates, who formerly played with the Howard's Furniture team from Denver and has been nominated for the American Softball Association Hall of Fame, said he just had one thing to prove - that he could still hit home runs with the best.

``The whole time I was thinking to myself, I just want to show you guys I'm still around,' `` said Bates, who won the Class D division and the championship by belting four of five pitches over the outfield fence.

``They were talking to themselves saying, I can't believe this old grandpa is beating us.' ``

Bates, who has three grandchildren and another on the way, said his secret for hitting home runs is a simple one: ``You wait on the pitch you know you can hit hard. Don't free swing. I'll take a good pitch because I figure another one's coming along.''

Mick Chandler, an NSA state director, said there's another reason for Bates' success.

``His love for the game,'' said Chandler, who's known Bates for 30 years.

Bates, who graduated from the old Ashley High in 1958, said he developed his swing while growing up in Gastonia.

``When I was a kid, I didn't have any bats, balls or gloves,'' said the 6-foot--1/2, 200-pound Bates. ``So I would go down to the railroad tracks with a broom or mop handle, throw rocks in the air and hit them until my hands were sore with blisters.''

Bates played his first softball game when he was 20 and in the Air Force. He learned fast, because the Air Force teams played fast-pitch softball.

After getting out of the armed forces, he played catcher with the McAdenville Reds starting in 1961. The Reds won the American Softball Association's national title that year.

One year later, he joined the nationally known Howard's Furniture team out of Denver. He played with Howard's for 12 years and the team collected three national titles along the way.

Bates' best year for home runs was in 1971, when he hit 430 in 185 games with Howard's. He was also playing pickup or recreational games, where he hit countless others.

``Back in the old days,'' says Bates, ``it wasn't anything for me to hit three or four home runs a game.''

Bates didn't play in 1975 due to a broken ankle, but came back a year later to the McAdenville Reds. He played with the Reds for a year and has been with several other teams since.

These days, though, he just plays recreational softball for weekend teams and in an over-50 league. In two weeks, Bates will head to Chattanooga, Tenn., for the Over-50 Nationals with Charlotte's Ferguson Box team.

Bates, who hasn't been active in sanctioned play for three years, will learn in late February or early March whether he'll be named to the ASA Hall of Fame.

``He was a super player,'' said Chandler. ``He's deserving. He was one of the very best back then.''

For Bates, the honor would be even sweeter than defeating players half his age.

``That would mean all these 33 years of softball playing was worthwhile,'' Bates said.

* Gaston Observer softball super 6

The top six open-league softball teams for this week were picked by C.J. Holland of Kings Mountain, Zone 4 president of the U.S. Slow-pitch Softball Association; and Mick Chandler of Gastonia, Gaston County director and state masters director for the National Softball Association.

No. Team League/Class Prv. 1. Stanley Florist (Class D, Stanley) 1 2. Pier 66 (Class D, Bess. City) 2 3. Renegades (Class D, Kings Mtn.) 3 4. Hansil's Tree Service (Class E, Belmont) 3 5. Wild Bunch (Class E, Gastonia) 5 B + B (Class E, Belmont) - - Compiled by Brett Jensen

 

part V

THE CHARLOTTE OBSERVER

BASHERS HOPE TO BUILD BIG-LEAGUE TEAM\
Saturday, April 10, 1993

Section: GASTON OBSERVER

Edition: FOUR


Page: 4

By JOHN GLENNON, Staff Writer


Memo: Softball notebook / John Glennon




Once they were part of softball`s ``Murderer`s Row,`` the heart of the
order for national powerhouse Howard`s Furniture of Denver.

Soon, those players, guys like Tim Rhinehart, Buck Buchanan, Rick
``Crusher`` Scheer and Gary Lowe, may once again be part of one softball
team.

Lowe is putting together a squad that will match the best of Howard`s past
teams - teams that won 12 national championships between 1973 and 1989 - with some outstanding young talent.


The team`s first test will be this weekend, when it travels to a tournament in Johnson City, Tenn.
``We`ll know after the weekend if everything will work,`` said Lowe, who
will be the team`s pitcher and coach. ``We hope it all clicks.``

The idea for the team, Lowe said, came from Rhinehart, a man who`s hit
approximately 3,500 homers in his career and is anxious to smack some more.

``He didn`t want to play in any lower division tournaments, where they
limit the number of home runs,`` Lowe said. ``He wanted to get back in the top echelon.``

The team will likely play in the Class AA or Major divisions, the most
competitive ones.

Buchanan hit more than 4,000 homers in his career and Scheer is always a
top contender in the annual Gaston County home-run hitting contest. In
addition, Jeff Hall is one of the area`s best young bashers.

 

part VI

THE CHARLOTTE OBSERVER

SAY RHINEHART AND FANS SEE THE SOFTBALLS FLY
PLAYER IS KNOWN FOR HIS DEDICATION, RECORD\
Saturday, April 3, 1993

Section: GASTON OBSERVER

Edition: FOUR


Page: 1

By JOHN GLENNON, Staff Writer


Illustration: PHOTO-2



Caption: Staff photos by LAURA MUELLER: 1. Long ball: Tim Rhinehart has hit
more than 400 homers in a season and once crushed a softball the length of 1-1 / 2 football fields. 2. Busy guy: Tim Rhinehart keeps his strength by
lifting weights at the YMCA, and by helping hoist 600-pound doors at work. He plays in three leagues in the spring, summer and fall.\




The fans fill the Ferguson Park stands on nights Tim Rhinehart plays
softball, eager as moviegoers at a world premiere showing.

They come to watch Rhinehart, a 6-6, 270-pound man who doesn`t hit
softballs as much as he hurts them.

He belts home runs, sure, but they`re more than just home runs.


They`re mortar blasts, shots that fly off his big silver bat and sail high
over fences, over oak trees, over small buildings and cars.
In a county that treasures softball as its pastime, there`s no doubt who is the biggest, baddest home-run basher of them all.

It`s Rhinehart, a man who once smashed more than 400 homers in a season,
who once crushed a softball the length of 1-1/2 football fields, who sends
nearly half his hits over the fence.

He`s back again this season, fresh from a winter of weight lifting, bat
swinging and a tryout with the nation`s best softball team.

And he`s ready to rip a few more.

``You always get the fever about this time of year,`` said Rhinehart, 36, a Gastonia native. ``You want to get back out there and do it again, just to
make sure you haven`t lost anything.``

The Ferguson Park parking lot extends well beyond the left-field fence, but you won`t find many cars there when Rhinehart`s playing for the Yorkwood
Church of God team.

They`d be sitting ducks.

Sometimes, Rhinehart`s shots fly over the red-tip hedges behind the left-
field fence and sail 40 more feet to a city maintenance building.

The next morning, workers find them in the back of their pickups. Or, more
than once, sitting in their front seats after smashing through windshields.

``We have to park with our windshields the other way because of him,`` said Chuck Dellinger, director of the city`s recreation department.

Those are some of the longest of the 3,500 or so home runs Rhinehart has
whacked in a career that`s spanned nearly 20 years.

The longest, he figures, was about 450 feet, swatted during a home-run
hitting contest against a television commentator in Marietta, Ga., in 1987.

``I was hitting from home plate, and he was hitting from the pitcher`s
mound,`` Rhinehart said. ``I hit nine out of 10 out. He hit one out of 10.``

His greatest season came seven years ago, when Rhinehart was playing for
the former Howard`s Furniture team of Denver that annually ranked among the
nation`s best.

He stepped up to bat 880 times that summer and walloped 409 softballs over
the fence.

``Sometimes you get in a groove, and it doesn`t matter what they throw
towards you,`` he said. ``You`re going to hit it. That`s about the way that
year was.``

These days, Rhinehart doesn`t play quite as often as he did when he helped
Howard`s to four national titles, averaging about 250 homers per season.

He competes for the Yorkwood team, for his Cookson Co. industrial league
squad and for another top-level team based in Harrisburg.

His power, though, has hardly diminished.

``You can throw it high, low or straight, and it doesn`t matter. He`ll hit
it out,`` said Dave Kessell, an opposing pitcher who`s turned his head many a time after Rhinehart`s mashed his tosses.

``He`s so powerful, and he`s got the stride and the swing down just right.
It`s amazing.``

*

Hometown heroes

Most men Rhinehart`s age grew up worshiping pro baseball stars like Willie
Mays, Frank Robinson or Roberto Clemente.

Not Rhinehart.

His heroes played softball for the great Pharr Yarns teams or for Howard`s
Furniture. They were men like Howard`s Don Arandt who tested their skills
against the best in the nation every year.

Rhinehart played varsity basketball and baseball for North Gaston High, but softball was always his passion.

``Even when I was young,`` Rhinehart said, ``I wanted to be a home-run
hitter. And I wanted to play for Howard`s.``

He took to the sport after graduating from high school in 1975 and taking a job with a sporting goods company - pumping weights to add muscle to his 6-6, 175-pound frame.

It was two years before he hit his first home run, a pop that sailed over
the left-field fence in McAdenville.

``I was running around the bases as hard as I could,`` Rhinehart said,
``and one of the infielders stopped me and said, Hey, slow down and enjoy
it.` ``

He wanted more.

``I would read every magazine I could to make sure I was doing things
right,`` Rhinehart said. ``I would grab my bat and stand right in front of the mirror, patterning my swing to get it right. I`m sure I drove my wife crazy.`` Soon, the homers came in handfuls, in dozens, in bushels, as Rhinehart
paced his Ranlo Baptist church team to a state championship and then competed with Kings Mountain`s Carolina A`s.

His reputation spread, and Howard`s Arandt invited him to join the national powerhouse team in 1981.

``I remember when (he) first called,`` Rhinehart said, ``and I thought it
was a joke. It was what I`d always dreamed of.``

He played eight years for Howard`s, until 1988, a big bopper on a team full of bruising hitters. The team finished among the nation`s top three every
year, once setting a national team home-run record

``You didn`t ever want to leave the park,`` Rhinehart said, ``and when you
did, you couldn`t wait to get back.``

*

Dedicated slugger

He hasn`t lost the dedication and desire that first made him a great
softball slugger.

Rhinehart keeps his strength lifting weights at the YMCA, as well as at
work, where he helps hoist 600-pound doors at Cookson.

He swings his way through three leagues in the spring, summer and fall. But he`s still clubbing softballs in midwinter, when teammates have tucked away
their bats and gloves.

You`ll find him then at Shumate`s, Gastonia`s indoor batting cage.

``He hits more in these cages than anyone else in the county,`` owner Frank Shumate said. ``I mean a minimum of (400) to 500 balls per week.

``That`s why he`s the kind of hitter he is. I play tournaments from
Maryland to Florida, and he`s the best I`ve ever seen.``

Rhinehart took a shot at joining the best a few weeks back when he tried
out for Steele`s, a team that travels the nation and racks up one tournament
title after another. He failed to earn a spot.

``They were just looking for some speed in the outfield,`` Rhinehart said.
``That`s not me. I`m first base, designated hitter or catcher.``

The setback, though, won`t keep him off the Gaston County circuit.

In just a few weeks, he`ll be back, taking those long strides toward home
plate and then pounding those poor 6-ounce softballs far, far through the
night air.

``I haven`t seen any like him,`` Dellinger said.

``When he hits `em, it`s not when they come down, it`s if they come down.`` *

Hot hitters

Tim Rhinehart isn`t the only slugger in town. Here`s a list of some other
home run hitters, men who have battered bushels of homers in their prime. Also listed are their hometowns and the teams on which they hit the most home runs. * Don Arandt, Denver, Howard`s Furniture

* Buck Buchanan, Gastonia, Pharr Yarns

* Rusty Bumgardner, Kings Mountain, Wild Bunch

* Jeff Hall, Gastonia, Shelby`s Domino`s Pizza

* Stan Harvey, Gastonia, Howard`s Furniture

* Rick Scheer, Denver, Howard`s Furniture

*

Tim Rhinehart

Farthest home run: ``It was at a home-run hitting contest in Marietta (Ga.).
It was a good day, with good conditions, and we measured it at about 450 feet. We`d parked about 18 rows into the parking lot, and when we walked to the car, the ball was in front of it.``

Biggest superstition: ``When I walk out to go to bat, I always walk behind the umpire. Even if he`s back on the back stop, I`ll wait until he moves. I don`t know why, but I`ve been doing it for years.``

Biggest fear: Horror movies. ``I just can`t handle them. I can`t stand all
that stuff sneaking up on you and jumping out. My kids like them, so they give me a hard time.``

Favorite ball fields: Field No. 1 at Dallas` Biggerstaff Park, Charlotte`s
Renaissance Park and Rock Hill (S.C.`s) Cherry Park.

 

part VII

THE CHARLOTTE OBSERVER

BUCHANAN CLOUT
SOFTBALL LEGEND KEEPS ON BELTING OUT HOME RUNS\
Wednesday, August 12, 1992

Section: SPORTS

Edition: ONE-FOUR


Page: 1B

By LANGSTON WERTZ Jr., Staff Writer


Illustration: PHOTO



Caption: Staff photo by JOHN D. SIMMONS: Big stick: Buck Buchanan says he has
hit more than 4,000 home runs in 26 years of trying. A Gaston County police
officer, Buchanan used softball to get a college education, and the game has
been his lifeline every summer since.




Sometimes Buck Buchanan thinks this may be it. Every August, as softball
season winds down, and he adds to his home run hitting record, he thinks this may be it, his last season . . . his time to retire.

Buck Buchanan is 41. He`s been one of the best for two decades and has
played with and against the greatest players his sport has to offer. But every time he wants to give up, his love of this game, something that he began as a backyard hobby, tugs at his heartstrings.

``Sometimes I want to stop, just relax and enjoy life,`` says Buchanan, a
Gaston County police officer for the past 16 years. ``But every year,
something just makes me go out there. It`s almost like I have to.``


Gary Lowe, who has played with Richard Howard`s legendary Howard`s
Furniture team against some of the best hitters in the country, and with
Buchanan for the past 14 years, says, ``He`s one of the top 20 home run
hitters I`ve ever seen. I`ve played with Rick The Crusher` Scheer, who hit 465 home runs in a season, and other guys like that. And with Buck, you`re talking about one of the elite home run hitters in the world.``
Is Buchanan really one of the greatest softball hitters of all time? Who
knows for sure? Most people have no official softball statistics, and in every town in every city, there`s probably some guy who can say he`s one of the best and find 10 other people to agree with him. The fact that half of Gastonia and Richard Howard himself say Buchanan is one of the greats shouldn`t matter.

But in 26 years, Buchanan says he has gotten seven hits for every 10 at-
bats he`s taken, and says he`s hit more than 4,000 home runs. That`s more
than 153 home runs per season. And that should matter.

``He`s (41 years old) and he`s still probably the most feared hitter in
these parts,`` says Mick Chandler, Gaston County softball director. ``He`s
been a legend from the time he started playing.``

*

Backyard beginnings

Buchanan became a legend by accident. Softball was his hobby. He just liked to hit that ``big ole white ball.`` And, as one of the McAdenville Reds
coaches said back then, he hit ``the tar out of it.``

Buchanan was discovered by one of the McAdenville coaches just hitting
balls around his home. For fun.

The McAdenville folks were so impressed with this big 19-year-old that they arranged for him to get a job at a carpet mill in McAdenville and play for its team, Pharr Yarns.

It was just the beginning of softball helping Buck Buchanan.

``I was always athletically inclined,`` Buchanan says. ``I played football, basketball and baseball at Stanley High School. Just about any kind of sport
excited me. I just tried softball to try it. But then, anything that had
anything to do with sports, I tried it.``

When the McAdenville team ``discovered`` him in 1968, Buchanan was one year out of Stanley High, a 6-3, 240-or-so-pound youngster who wanted to get on the sports fields again. He became such a hit at Pharr Yarns that his ability
would eventually pay his way into college.

Kenny Mitchum, a friend of Buchanan`s who played with the Pharr Yarns team, went to college in Texas and played for a team called Teller Brothers Jewelry. Mitchum told the Teller Brothers about this big kid from his hometown who
could hit home runs just about whenever he wanted to.

``They flew me down, and I played in a tournament down there,`` Buchanan
says. ``They liked what they saw, I guess.``

Must`ve. The Teller Brothers paid off Buchanan`s `73 blue Chevy Impala,
paid for his apartment and his tuition to Texas A&I.

In return, all Buchanan had to do was do his thing: hit the tar out of a
softball.

*

The stories

When Buchanan finished school in 1974 and returned home, he played with an
all-star team here and there. Howard`s Furniture out of Denver, N.C., then one of the country`s softball powers, auditioned him in 1978. Owner Howard liked
him and picked Buchanan up. And if you played with Howard`s, you were big-
time, no questions asked.

It was with Howard`s that Buchanan befriended Lowe. And the two have stuck
together, playing softball, until today.

``Buck`s been known to hit a 400-foot shot every now and then,`` Lowe says. ``Most ballparks are 300 feet and he`s hitting the ball 100 feet beyond the
wall. I remember once, in 1983 when we were with Howard`s, we won the `83
men`s major national championship in Ohio. Buck hit 17 homers that weekend.
And he played third. For a man to be 270 pounds and play third like he did
. . . you just don`t see it.``

* His younger brother Andre Buchanan remembers most a defensive play Buck
made several years ago. ``He was playing third and he dived for the ball and
he flipped over. Still, he threw the guy out sitting down on his butt.``

* Lowe`s favorite?

``We were playing in Knoxville, Buck was on third and the ball took a bad
hop and hit him in the eye. I took him out of the game and his eye swelled.
Later, I asked him if he could play. He hit one completely out of the park and into the football stadium - really - that was next to it. We said, maybe we
should blacken both your eyes.` It was the farthest home run I`ve ever seen.`` *

Is this the end?

Buchanan plays for an over-40 team in Charlotte. He`s still a big man,
about 245 pounds, down 35 from his playing heyday.

But Buchanan is a feared softball player. He still hits his 100-plus home
runs a summer and, every now and then, he`ll really catch one. He`ll stand at the plate, gently lay his bat down and watch it go.

``I always like to see him hit the home run and watch the glow on his
face,`` Andre Buchanan says. ``Basically, if he catches one and hits it well, he`ll stand and look at it for a few minutes before he takes off running.``

And Buchanan says he has a lot left.

``I keep saying that this is the year that I`m going to retire,`` he says.
``But it gets hot again and I want to get out there.

``It`s hard to say really when I will, I`ll probably play until the good
Lord takes the breath out of me. I keep myself in good shape and I`m hitting
the ball better than I did in my 20s. I think I`m peaking out.``

 

part VIII

THE CHARLOTTE OBSERVER

HE PLAYS SOFTBALL NOW AND THEN
FOR 29 YEARS, DEAN WEST HAS LIVED FOR THE GAME
Saturday, June 9, 1990

Section: SPORTS

Edition: ONE-FOUR

Page: 1F

By JOHN GLENNON, Staff Writer


Illustration: PHOTO-2



Caption: 1. Special To The Observer: In 1971, West led the Pharr Yarns
Reds to the American Softball Association title.

2. Staff Photo By ROBERT LAHSER: The look on Dean West`s face reflects the
determination that has carried him through 29 years of playing softball for
the Pharr Yarns plant leagues and over-40 teams.




In his 29 years as a softball player, Dean West has thought about quitting more than once.

He`s played through heat - once, in a mid-summer tournament, he poured
water on his spikes and saw steam rise. And he`s played through rain so hard
it was difficult to find the mud-covered home plate.

At those times, West thought of spending more time with the grandchildren,
or more time in the bass boat.


Every year, though, he returns to his favorite game.
``I see the grass turn green,`` said West, 51. ``I see the grass turn
green, and I just can`t help myself.``

West is like thousands of others in the Carolinas. They play softball in
church, city and industrial leagues or at Sunday picnics.

It`s a game that some play for fellowship, some for trophies and most
everyone to hold onto a memory of what it was like years ago.

When he was young, West was not a competitive athlete, not in junior high
nor at Gastonia`s Ashley High.

He started playing softball in 1961 for a Pharr Yarns plant league team. A
year later, Pharr Yarns athletic director Ray ``Red`` Jenkins, impressed by
West`s speed, picked him to play for the Pharr Yarns Reds.

The Reds had earned a reputation as one of the nation`s best teams.

Pharr Yarns athletic directors recruited players around the state to play
for the team - and work in the plants. People around the nation came to know
McAdenville as the home of the Reds.

The Reds played at Pharr Park, where standing-room-only crowds of 500 were
common. Fans filled the stadium, sat on lawn chairs atop bleachers and covered the banks.

The grass was always green and freshly trimmed at Pharr Park field, the
infield dirt dragged minutes before the game and the chalk lining the diamond bright white.

West still remembers opening day in 1967, when he jogged onto the Pharr
Park field wearing his red hat, red shirt and white pinstripe pants. It was
his first game as a starter.

``I cannot describe the feeling to have all those fans in the stands, and
to put the Pharr uniform on,`` West said. ``It was phenomenal. Everybody that put the uniform on felt the same way.``

In September 1970, the Reds were one of 60 teams invited to the American
Softball Association World Series in Jones Beach, N.Y.

On the tournament`s final day, the Reds swept a doubleheader from
Wisconsin`s Pabst International Harvester to win their first championship.
West earned second-team All-World honors as a catcher.

Minutes later, West and seven other overjoyed teammates leaped off a nearby boardwalk. They charged across 100 yards of sand, scattering shoes, gloves and hats and dodging baffled Labor Day bathers. Several players, still in uniform, sprinted straight into the Atlantic Ocean.

``Everybody looked at us like we were idiots, quite insane,`` West said.

The Reds repeated as national championships in 1971 and `72. West was named second-team All-World both times.

He has a 10-carat gold ring for each championship - one red, one blue and
one green. He has never worn one, because he fears his job duties as a Clover, S.C., Pharr Yarns plant engineer would flaw a ring.

``They look a lot like university rings,`` West said. ``I`ll probably pass
them down to my grandchildren.``

West played for the Reds until 1986, when the team disbanded. He has played 29 seasons in the Pharr Yarns plant leagues, and for the past 11 years, he has also played on over-40 teams. In 1979, West played on the Howard`s Furniture
over-40 team that reached the national finals in Columbia.

West does not jog, nor does he lift weights to stay in shape.

He smokes two packs of cigarettes per day, and he has gained 30 pounds
since he weighed 185 in 1961. But it is West`s speed that sets him apart. He
is faster than most - if not all - players on his plant league team.

``He can run with a 20-year-old,`` said Flip Dow, who coaches West`s Gaston County 40-and-over team. ``When he hits the ball, everyone in front of him
goes. And if they`re slow, they`re in trouble.``

Over the years, West`s first teammates have stopped playing softball. Reds
pitcher Jody Brockman is now a shipping clerk at Pharr Yarn`s Space Dye Plant. Shortstop Mike Hoover works for an investment firm in Rock Hill. Outfielder
Gene West, Dean`s younger brother, is a Pharr Yarns supply manager.

Dean West believes he is the only team member from those championship years still playing. He admits he doesn`t get excited about every game.

``A lot of times now,`` he says, ``I`ll be working in my garden and it will get overcast. I`ll say, I wouldn`t mind a bit if it rained.` ``

He says his love for the game remains.

On game days, his wife lays his uniform on the bed, and he puts it on after work. He eats nothing before going to the park. He stretches before every
game. Then he runs the sidelines, until he pants.

In 1988, West tied for first place in an open home-run hitting contest at
Pharr Park.

In 1989, Roger Ward, an opposing center fielder, laughed at West when he
came to bat for the first time. West stepped out of the batter`s box, fuming. He crushed the next pitch over Pharr Park`s center-field fence. He rounded
second base and laughed back at Ward.

Three weeks ago in a plant league game, he charged from first to third base on a single to shallow right field, as a stunned shortstop bobbled a relay
throw. Seconds later, he sprinted home ahead of an outfielder`s toss.

``I`m 51 now,`` West says, ``and I really think I`m better than when I was
25.``

His wife Kay, says when she married Dean in 1963, she thought he would
outgrow softball.

``But,`` she says, ``I`m finding out that men don`t outgrow their hobbies
sometimes.``

 

part IX

THE CHARLOTTE OBSERVER

THERE IS NO JOY IN SOFTBALL . . .
THE MIGHTY HOWARD HAS FINALLY GOTTEN OUT
Tuesday, April 11, 1989

Section: MAIN NEWS

Edition: ONE-SIX

Page: 1A

By STAN OLSON, Staff Writer


Illustration: PHOTO-3



Caption: Staff Photos By JEEP HUNTER / 1.This sign stands in front of Richard
Howard`s furniture store in Denver, N.C. Every night, a neon pitcher
winds up and throws a neon softball to a neon batter, who hits
it every time. And every time, the sign flashes ``Home Run.``

2. Warehouses behind the fences of Richard Howard`s softball field are
pockmarked from the dents of hundreds of home runs.

3. Richard Howard stands at the old softball field behind Howard Furniture Co. It was a simpler time and a simpler game when Howard began playing in the
1950s.




The sign towers over N.C. 150, in front of Richard Howard`s home and
furniture store. On it, every night from 8 until 1, a neon pitcher winds up
and throws a neon softball to a neon batter, who hits it every time. And every time, the sign flashes ``Home Run.``

``People drive here from everywhere to see that sign and to see the
trophies,`` said Howard.

Once, his team - Howard`s Furniture and later Howard`s Western Steer - was
the best slow pitch softball team in the world.


But now Richard Howard isn`t playing anymore. For the first time since
1959, he has left the game as a sponsor.
``I`m doing it for the good of softball,`` Howard said, leaning on his cane
with the handle shaped like a bat. ``The game`s getting out of shape from the players thinking it was pro. Trophies can`t reward somebody enough anymore.`` Howard, one of the first to pay players by offering them jobs with his
companies, has recently found himself being outbid for the top softball
talent.

Last season, Howard`s softball budget was $180,500. Steele`s, a team out of Lima, Ohio, sponsored by Coors, spent $650,000 and paid players as much as
$40,000, Howard said.

``It used to be my players would ride a bicycle 10 miles just to play
softball, and I would, too. But the players that were good were in demand, and gradually the sponsors would dig a little deeper. Now the players are
spoiled.``

*

Howard, 64, was born to a dirt-poor farmer on the land on which he now
lives. After returning home from World War II, he made $32 a week in a machine shop and spent his evenings pouring cement for walks and patios.

Howard had an instinct for business. He and two relatives opened a hardware store, and eventually he became a major investor in a furniture store, two
restaurant chains, a restaurant equipment-supply business, several bowling
establishments, insurance and real estate, particularly around Lake Norman.

``Land is the best investment,`` he said. ``Can`t nobody pull a stock deal
on you.``

Howard loved sports. when he was general manager of Charlotte Motor
Speedway from 1964 to 1976, his promotions helped put the struggling track on solid financial ground, according to speedway President H.A. ``Humpy``
Wheeler.

And then there was softball.

It was a simpler time and a simpler game when Howard began playing in the
1950s. He pitched for his church team, the Mount Pleasant Methodist Mules.
There were church leagues and industrial leagues then, players bonded by the
place they worshiped or the place they made their living.

By 1959, he was sponsoring his own team. As Howard`s reputation grew along
with its victories, better players called. Howard`s was a state power by the
early 1960s, a national power by the 1970s.

His players were no longer only from the Carolinas. Players from other
states came to Denver and worked summers for Howard in his warehouses or his
restaurants. They practiced on the softball field in Howard`s backyard.

In 1971, Howard began recruiting. He talked a powerful outfielder named
Stan Harvey into leaving his home in Soddy-Daisy, Tenn., and moving to
Charlotte. Others followed.

``A lot of `em were schoolteachers, and there was a rule you had to be a
resident of North Carolina by March 1 to play on a North Carolina team,``
Howard said. ``I`d bring `em down here on March 1 every year and have a feed
for `em. Then I`d put up a mailbox for `em out front so they`d have a North
Carolina address while they went home to finish teaching. At one time, I had
11 mailboxes out there.``

In 1973, Howard`s won its first national championship and eventually would
win 12.

Howard helped fund his softball operation by manufacturing his own bat, a
``Bombat,`` in the early `70s. Then, a decade ago, he started his own
sporting goods concern, Howard`s Sports Co. Inc., selling bats and balls and
receiving promotional fees for the use of the Howard`s name on the equipment. Profits from the sporting goods operation helped fund the softball team, as did corporate sponsors like Hillerich and Bradsby, which contributed close to $150,000 yearly for the past three seasons, according to Howard`s son, Doug.

``We made some money some years, broke even some and lost some money some
years,`` said Doug Howard. ``Last year, Dad had to put some additional money
into it.

``To be honest, we all got tired of it. The last three years were the
worst. It really just got to be a business.``

Once, Richard Howard said, it had been family. Many of his former players
work in his businesses. Standout slugger Don Arndt, now president of Howard`s Sports Co. Inc., works with him at his office.

``I was helping people,`` Howard said in his thick Carolina drawl. ``Our
players would take their whole families to tournaments and we`d put `em up,
and it was fun.

``And there`s no doubt we got to the top.

``I just decided to get out for a year and let the boys find out that
there`s not that much money in the sport after all. I think it`s working
- boys that made $25,000 last year are playing for $200 or $300 a week now, or for nothing.

``But I ain`t decided what I`ll do next year yet.``

Now, as softball season begins, Richard Howard`s softball field sits empty and silent behind his house, except for an occasional game involving the local Optimist Club`s team.

``I can sit down here in an easy chair and the air-conditioning in the
evening,`` he said, ``and see my ball field.``

He stood looking at it through the sliding glass doors of his den. Looking
at tin-roofed warehouses behind the fences, pockmarked from the dents of
hundreds of home runs past.

``It got away from everybody. The sponsorship and cost got away from us,``
he said quietly. ``We were a party to the situation. I realize that I was one of the ones that started this monster, because I wanted to win.``

 

part X

THE CHARLOTTE OBSERVER

HOME RUN HEROES
ARNDT, MACENKO PERSONIFY OLD AND NEW IN SOFTBALL`S POWER-HITTING
LEGENDS
Sunday, August 9, 1987

Section: SPORTS

Edition: ONE-SIX

Page: 9D

By MIKE PURKEY, Staff Writer


The home run hitter stands steadfast and timeless as an American hero. His
strength is admired, his power envied.

During slow-pitch softball`s salad years, and deep into its prime, the name Don Arndt rang synonymous with the best of the game.

But hitters never age gracefully. They are doggedly pursued by legends,
half-truths and what used to be. The time inevitably comes when they are
reluctantly replaced.


Mike Macenko is the new. Young and strong, he is already forging his own
legends, to be repeated and distorted until he, too, steps aside.
Names change, legends grow.

A warehouse, gray and dingy with age, stands about 15 feet high and 300
feet from home plate beyond the left-center field fence.

The ballpark, which belongs to slow-pitch softball magnate Richard Howard,
lies in a hollow directly behind Howard`s house and his furniture store. The
red brick structures stand side-by-side just across the Catawba County line,
hard against Lake Norman and a couple of miles past the sleepy town whose sign welcomes visitors to ``Denver of the East.``

Hundreds of dents, maybe thousands, from home runs have left the warehouse
walls pockmarked and wrinkled. It sounds like a car wreck when a softball
bangs against the metal, and Don Arndt has been responsible for more than his share of the racket.

Lordy, could he hit. His whiplash swing is generated by powerful wrists and hands, the span of which could nearly cover a dinner plate. Almost lazy in his apparent effort, he launches the ball and, two, three, four times a game
- BANG!

Concealed strength hides in a deceptive appearance, but Babe Ruth was no
great physical specimen, either. Arndt stands 6-6 and, at 230 pounds, would be called lanky if it weren`t for his wide-angle Ruthian beltline.

After each home run, he is chased by the ching, ching of car keys and spare change in the back pocket of his uniform pants, as if he were about to stop
for a soft drink or make a quick getaway.

Arndt is 52. He is semi-retired from competition that chronicles more than
5,000 official home runs in a 31-year career that has touched four decades.
And if 10 years worth of scorebooks could be exhumed, it is likely the total
would reach 7,000.

He has played all 31 years for none other than Howard`s teams.

``I never received one dime to play to play softball,`` Arndt said. ``All I got was travel for me and my family to see places in the United States I
wouldn`t have seen if it hadn`t been for softball.``

Opportunity could always be found, lurking behind the grandstands, with an
offer of a better job or more money. But Arndt always chose to stay around
home, working for his longtime friend Howard, in a place not 5 miles from the farm where he grew up. ``I was never one to jump around,`` he says.

The T-shirt worn by Mike Macenko is in grave danger. Its thin fabric
strains to the limit of its woven fibers, molding like skin against his
sculptured biceps, triceps and pectorals.

Except for his blond wire-brush mustache, Macenko`s short, wavy hair, high
cheekbones and finely defined torso would qualify him as a model for a statue of a Greek god.

His mammoth hands are thick as beef filets, his arms like jackhammers.

At 6-3 and 260 pounds, Macenko lays waste to softballs. When he hits, he
makes noise, the bat makes noise, the crowd makes noise and the ball sails far over the fence.

Macenko has performed that ritual more times this year than anyone ever has in a single season. As of Aug. 4, he has amassed a dizzying 636 home runs
through 264 games, breaking the 1985 record of 503 set last year by teammate
Charles Wright.

He has hit nine home runs in a game this year and once he hit four in one
inning. He poleaxed a home run that was measured at 508 feet - 508 feet - in a tournament game in Las Vegas.

Macenko is projected to reach 800 home runs before season`s end, a mark
that could endure in a sport where lately records have taken a tumble. In
stark contrast, baseball`s all-time home run leader, Henry Aaron, hit a mere
755 home runs in his career.

Macenko, 31, grew up in Brook Park, Ohio, a blue-collar Cleveland suburb
whose ranch-style houses vibrate under the flight pattern of Hopkins
International Airport. He discovered softball 14 years ago after high school
football, basketball and wrestling played out.

He began in a city league and since 1975 has played only for teams managed
by Dave Neale, the current manager of Steele`s. He, like Arndt, has resisted
jumping teams because of his relationship with the man who got his career off the ground.

In 1978, while he was playing for Neale`s Hillcrest Tavern team in
Cleveland, Macenko was was approached by a representative of Dave Carroll
Sports of Sherrills Ford, a team formed by one of Howard`s ex-players.

``He said, We`ll move you in and get you a job,` `` Macenko said. ``I
didn`t know what to think. Hell, I was 21 years old. I told him thanks, but I liked where I lived.``

He had been on the receiving end of his first recruiting pitch. It wouldn`t be his last.

``I`ve been approached on numerous occasions over the years,`` he said. ``I just told them, I`m kind of a home boy from Cleveland. I can remember when we used to get our brains beat out. Today, we`re the ones doing the stomping.
I`ve been around this game long enough to enjoy this a little.``

Macenko is also savoring his latest notoriety as the nation`s premier home
run hitter. His contract with Steele`s pays him a good living to play softball and promote his company`s sporting goods.

But the boy has yet to leave the man, a grown-up playing a child`s game,
living out the fantasy of winning each and every game by his own hand.

``I get a thrill from hitting,`` he said. ``I like to get up there just to
see how far I can hit that damn softball. When`s it`s my turn to hit again,
I`m ready. If somebody makes the last out before I hit, I feel cheated.``

``I`m a sick person for pressure.``

It all happens in an short instant. Turn away briefly, reach for a drink or a bite of hot dog and the moment is lost among the cheers.

Watch closely, and it unfolds almost in slow motion.

The man with steel bands for biceps grunts at the moment of contact, the
ball recoiling from the bat like the report of a firearm. It rises sharply,
reaches its apex and drops to earth, bouncing harmlessly beyond the outfield
fence.

Stand, put your hands together, loudly and repeatedly. It`s a home run.

*

HOME RUN HITTERS` PROFILE

DON ARNDT

* Hometown: Sherrills Ford

* Team: Howard`s Western Steer, Denver, N.C.

* Position: Pitcher, First Base

* Status: Semi-retired

* Age: 52

* Years In Softball: 31

* Height: 6-6

* Weight: 240

* Best Year: 1985 - 309 home runs in 201 games

* National Championships: 11

*

MIKE MACENKO

* Hometown: Brook Park, Ohio

* Team: Steele`s Sports, Grafton, Ohio

* Position: 2nd Base

* Status: Active

* Age: 31

* Years In Softball: 14

* Height: 6-3

* Weight: 260

* Best Year: 1987 - 636 home runs in 264 games (season not complete)

* National Championships: 3