Claremont
Corocran is part of a co-ed softball league that has boomed from a start-up of six teams in 2009 to the present number of 27 squads.
A generation ago, Claremont was a hub of modified-pitch softball, with games every night of the week and tournaments on the weekend. Stories still pop up involving a team called the Wild Bunch that not only won locally but played in national tournaments as well.
The sport was not only popular in Claremont, but there were leagues in neighboring towns that also thrived. Literally thousands of softball athletes, from Keene to Lebanon and every town in between, were playing modified softball. Then for reasons not explainable, adult softball disappeared completely as leagues from Claremont to Chester, Vt., and Windsor to Springfield, Vt., evaporated.
Jeff Coburn gets the credit for breathing life back into the game in Claremont. He started the city’s co-ed league in 2009, was its commissioner through its growth years and still is a player.
“It’s a nice league,” said Corcoran, the one-time Stevens High sports manager. “Lots of fun.”
Coburn thinks that the league has blossomed because the commitment is not one that disrupts family life or work.
“It’s one game a week, and the game only lasts an hour,” Coburn explained.
And unlike the competitive modified leagues — a seven-team modified league remains in Claremont — co-ed softball is more of a participation activity, even as teams make an effort at winning their contests.
In a game on Sunday morning, both the shortstop and third baseman were left-handed. The left-fielder made a nice running catch of a foul ball and drew applause, to which he bowed in response.
And catchers aren’t really catchers, at least not in the traditional sense. They wear no equipment and stand off to the side, picking up the pitched ball and tossing it back to the pitcher. Bunting and stealing are against the rules.
When co-ed softball first made its appearance, it kind of drew chuckles. After all, there was never really a need for a ball and strike umpire. If the ball landed on the mat (approximately twice the length of a softball home plate), it was a strike as long as the ball was not pitched any higher than 12 feet in the air or lower then six feet. Otherwise, the pitch is a ball.
All teams must have four women, and if a man is walked to get to the next woman in the lineup, he gets two bases and she starts with a two-ball, one-strike count. (Normally, it’s 1-1 for everybody).
There also are other friendly rules for women, particularly a line in the outfield that prevents the defense from playing in to close. A team that plays with only three women in its lineup has to take an out when the supposed fourth’s turn comes to bat.
The Claremont league’s games are played for three hours on Saturdays, with a Sunday schedule that starts at 9 a.m. and continues until 8 p.m. There is one paid certified umpire in each game, and almost all the teams are sponsored at a cost of $400 per squad. Uniforms are usually just game T-shirts.
Veterans Park is the site of the Claremont games, the same place Stevens High School uses for its softball team. The parking area just over the outfield fence is vacant during games because of the number of home runs that land there.
It pays to hit a home run on a steamy day like Sunday, too. Another league rule states that those who launch a shot over the fence don’t have to run it out.
There’s one other thing that makes Claremont’s exploding softball league fun, according to Coburn: “There’s no smoking or drinking in the park.”