Slo-pitch — or, originally, slow-pitch — softball can be traced back to Chicago in 1887 as a recreational break during Thanksgiving. Baseball had been around for decades. George Hancock came up with the idea of tying a boxing glove into a ball and using a stick as a bat. That first game was played indoors at the Farragut Boat Club as attendees went through the custom of waiting for telegraph updates from football’s Harvard-Yale game.  

Softball rapidly caught on, using a variety of makeshift orbs, and was known by many names — Indoor Baseball, Diamond Ball and, my personal favorite: Kitten Ball. The YMCA coined the handle, “Softball” in a 1926 national meeting. And so it’s been ever since. 

Here in the Santa Clarita Valley, men and women, boys and girls, pick your pronouns, have been playing baseball since the 19th century. Games would be started at the loosely organized Fourth of July celebrations or schoolyards, dating back to the late 19th century and, by the 1920s, we had two semi-pro baseball teams, one for Saugus, one for Newhall. We battled squads from neighboring Fillmore, Santa Paula and the San Fernando Valley, including The Apemen, owned by the legendary “Tarzan” author, Edgar Rice Burroughs. Many visiting squads were organized culturally, religiously or racially, with all-Jewish, Hispanic, Black, Catholic and even — perish the thought — the Irish. Our own film superstar, Harry Carey, employed an entire village of transplanted Arizona Native Americans who worked his San........

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