Thursday, April 30, 2009

Play Ball!

Lou Butler - baseball player
Summer, 1951

In February, 1951 Lou was discharged from the Navy for the second time after serving in the Korean War. (More about that later.) That summer the family returned to Colorado State College of Education in Greeley, Colorado to continue his education. True to form, Lou found time to play ball of some kind - this time softball.

"Kansas" Softball Team - Summer 1951
All States Softball League - CSCE
Lou Butler -- front row, far left

The recreation department at CSCE organized a “States Softball League” each summer, and I played with the Kansas team. We had a lot of fun, played often, and won most of our games. We also got games outside of the league. For one game we went to Berthoud to play, and our manager/player from Chicago gave us each a name of a famous baseball player on the lineup he handed to the announcer. The crowd got a big kick out of hearing Mickey Mantle, Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio and other big baseball names – especially when they beat us badly! We played together for three summers, with few changes each year.

I wonder which big name Dad was . . .

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Lou was Peewee Reese. His playing ball was fun for our entire family. We traveled to the little towns around Greeley in addition to the games we played in Greeley. Many of our social activities were with members of the team and their families. Most of them were younger and didn't have children. They did have a good team. The team played together at least two years. Leona