August 3, 2020
By: Bill Conger
How many hamstring pulls can you have in a softball season? Quite a few if you’re running the bases in church league softball. The second season begins the week of August 10, and one of the league’s five commissioners Jordan Atnip says he can guarantee a night of entertainment regardless of the numbers on the scoreboard.
“Nothing goes together as good as athleticism and aging bodies,” Atnip says, laughing. “I now know by looking at someone within five steps if they’ve pulled their hamstring. We all say that we’re going to train before the next season, but we never do.”
In shape or not, players will hit the field on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday nights for games at 6:00, 7:00, and 8:00 p.m. Nine churches—Smithville First Baptist Church, Elizabeth Chapel, Church of the Nazarene, Cumberland Presbyterian, New Life Pentecostal, Refuge, Sparta Nazarene, Outreach Baptist, and Calvary Baptist Church—will play in the eight week regular season.
Tournament action will happen the week after the schools’ Fall Break in mid-October.
At first the league commissioners wondered whether the season could begin during a pandemic. Since softball is a low contact sport and playing is optional, they decided to move forward. People who choose to step up to the plate will need to have been in a game by September 3 to be eligible for tournament play.
“That’s basically to keep a ringer out of there,” Jordan said. “We want folks to be involved if they are going to play in the tournament.”
Church League Softball came to an end several years ago because some say the league had lost sight of its purpose.
“Everybody was bent on winning games but not necessarily winning souls,” Jordan says.
This time around the league is used as an outreach tool for churches.
“We want you to recruit people who are not going to church, but we are going to enforce that they have to attend. You have to attend four services before you can play your first game, if you weren’t going to church somewhere. If you just want to play ball and you go to church just through the season and then as soon as tournament is over you don’t go to church again, that’s between you and the Lord. If you’re going to play, you’re going to hear the gospel on a weekly basis because you have to attend four services a month to retain your eligibility.”
Unlike secular sports, the teams in church softball put faith and fellowship above winning scores and championship trophies.
“Everyone goes out there with the mentality of I’m having fun. I don’t think anyone takes themselves too seriously. Our friends and brothers and sisters in Christ are on the other team. We poke at them. We high five them. We tell them good hit. It’s very friendly.”
Still on occasion, the competitive nature seeps out.
“Last season we had a couple of moments where tensions got a little hot, and you hear somebody on one team or another say, ‘Hey, it’s church league!’ And it would dissolve the tension.”
“On one particular play, I was umpiring, and there was a hit out in the outfield. I saw the ball go down as the outfielder was running towards it. I couldn’t tell if the ground hit the ball first or not. I didn’t know if it was an out or not. I was asking the field umpire [when] someone from the dugout of the team said, ‘Just ask him. It’s church league.’ The outfielder turned around and said, ‘Oh, it hit the ground first.’ In a competitive league that didn’t have faith built into it, who knows what would have happened in that situation?
The first run of the season will light up on a new score board that is “In Loving Memory of Bill and Jo Ann Page,” who founded the field and ran it. Before Ms. Page passed away last year, she had secured funding from Liberty State Bank for the score board. Darrell Gill with Gill Automotive used his company’s equipment recently to mount the sign while Smithville Electric positioned the posts.