Slow-pitch evolves in C.R.

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

By Bill Johnson, community contributor

As befell the M&J baseball league, sponsorship dollars slowly dried up and eventually men's fast-pitch softball died in Cedar Rapids.

This is not to say softball is any less popular - the collegiate women and high school girls' games still are going strong, but no longer do thousands pack Ellis Park for major tournaments.

There were other reasons for the demise of the men's game, as well. The growth in popularity of women's softball may have created a gender stigma for the sport, and while baseball had a number of youth leagues and teams, there was no equivalent developmental for fast-pitch softball. Additionally, as both Gregg Bosch and Scott Konecny observed, the explosive growth of youth sports (with some pre-teens playing up to 80 baseball games per year as but one example of many) has forced their parents, the softball players of earlier generations, to give up their game in order to support their children's activities.

Within that vacuum, though, slow-pitch softball continued to evolve.

There are four distinct slow-pitch softball variants, each related to the size of the ball itself. The 16-inch (circumference) variant is not just the stereotyped low-skill, home run-centric game played by piano movers who thrive on punishing a 12-inch ball. The 16-inch game, with a ball so large it actually inhibits homers, is the closest slow-pitch variant to either baseball or fast-pitch in terms of game strategy. Gazette editor J.R. Ogden wrote in 2003 that 'At one time in Iowa, 16-inch slow-pitch softball was the most popular game within the sport.”

It is a game that requires a year or two to learn, and a lifetime to master, and Cedar Rapids has produced a number of tremendous slow-pitch stars, notably 1973 Jefferson graduate and all-state baseball player Dan Azinger and long-time star Gary Wignall, among so many others.

Azinger tried both the 12- and 16-inch games, but ultimately opted to focus on the larger ball and the 'baseball” approach it demands. He played in town for 20 years, 16 of those with Mr. Bubbles, where he won four state titles, and Cedar Rapids Budweiser, with whom he won a fifth title in 1990. He was the state's most valuable player in 1983 and 1985, and was elected to the Iowa ASA Hall of Fame in 1997.

Marion's Gary Wignall joined Azinger in the Hall in 2002 after a 21-year career that included 16 national tournament appearances, 20 state tournaments and a state title in 1995 with Marshalltown's Carpet Country Rollers.

Those two have retired from the sport, but the 16-inch game still is dominated by a local team. CJ's Sports Bar won a state title in 2007, the first for Cedar Rapids since 1990, and added four more between 2011 and 2014. That team has featured an array of talent, including Norway's Nate Frese, who played for the University of Iowa and for the Chicago Cubs' AAA farm team in Des Moines a few years ago.