Armstrong’s dominated short-lived 14-inch slow-pitch game

Editor's note: Bill Johnson is a Cedar Rapids historian who spent 30 years working for the U.S. Navy. This is the last of a five-part series on softball in Cedar Rapids.

By Bill Johnson, community contributor

The 14-inch slow-pitch game rivaled its 16-inch brother for a time and Armstrongs' Sporting Goods of Cedar Rapids was one of the best teams in the state, winning three state titles in the 1980s.

Scott Konecny, currently vice president of the board of directors for the Cedar Rapids Softball Hall of Fame, managed an Iowa state-champion 12-inch team in 1994, 'Powercell/Ebys”, but he managed and played for 17 years in the 14-inch game before reaching that point. A key cog in the Armstrong's Sporting Goods mini-dynasty of the 1980s, he teamed with the likes of Dan Hilby, Steve Plotz, Randy Hook, Kevin Thorpe and slugging Brian Litts on teams that won 14-inch state titles in 1982 (with a season record of 84-8), 1983 (65-11) and 1986 (70-11).

For the era 1978-1989, Armstrongs posted a remarkable 577-136 record, including some tough games against chronic nemeses Interstate Batteries and OK Lounge.

Konecny won more than 1,000 games as a softball manager and he understands the differences among the variants as well as anyone. Even with the smaller ball, he notes, there is a premium on defensive prowess and thinking to offset the impact of the home run, and success at the highest levels of any of the games requires much more than just brute strength.

By 1990, the matrix of leagues and levels, from 12 - to 14- to 16-inch slow pitch, for both men and women (11-inch; by comparison, a baseball measures just over 9-inches), was as wide and deep as the fast-pitch league grid of the 1930s. The game continued to thrive, just in a different form.

The 14-inch game slowly dried up, becoming almost exclusively an Iowa game, before finally becoming relegated to virtual obscurity. The 12-inch game matured in the 1980s. At one time there were more than 100 teams in the Cedar Rapids area, all playing in the 'B,” 'C” and 'D” levels.

Today it is the 12-inch game that still continues to thrive among adults from ages 18 to 65 even though only a fraction of the teams still exist. In the past, teams like CRANDIC, the Regulators and Fuessley's (Paris), along with Konecny's Powercell squads, dominated Iowa's high ground on the 12-inch softball terrain, but as recently as 2012 Emil's Deli and Climate Engineers, both of Cedar Rapids, captured state titles of their own.

In 2015, more than 80 years after the inception of the Diamond Ball league, there still is softball excellence on display at Ellis Park. The game remains staggeringly popular as an accessible community activity. That Cedar Rapids was fortunate enough to host great Major Open and slow-pitch teams of the 20th century is a terrific chapter in the city's sports history. That it still sponsors and supports an active and engaged softball program, for both men and women, demonstrates something even more remarkable: a sincere commitment to its citizens.

Softball in Cedar Rapids is part of the story of the town and its changing economic identity, as embodied in the changing sponsorship and part of the story of the town's character, told in the lives of the many great players and teams that played here over the years.

One place to relive some of these stories is at the Hall of Fame at Ellis Park. Every summer all of the available members gather on a Sunday afternoon for an exhibition of softball and an induction ceremony to welcome new members to the shrine. The Hall offers everyone a chance to remember some of their fellow citizens, past and present, who excelled at softball at the highest levels in the nation. It, like the games, represents a piece of Iowa's past while celebrating the present.

This August, the Cedar Rapids Softball Hall of Fame and president George Steinke will induct another class and honor some of the greatest competitors in the game.