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Show " ii If : .i I' ,' 1' "f ;",.. ,... ...' --'S-is- .''".;,'',.... '"re s - C, :JV--,.-: . . ! A . ' i. A v.." rr v" - , ............ '; . - :,,.,:': ;..t.vtw,'f An insider's view of O ve r-T h e- L i n e FOUL CA - B FAIR - 1 -THE "LINE" A 55 feet B 60 feet FOUL by Randy Hanskat What do you get when you cross softball and the Southern California beach? f" You get an odd mutation called Over-The-Line, defined de-fined as a contest of abbreviated ab-breviated softball played in the sand between three-member three-member teams. Over-The-Line Ibegfffi in " San Diego back in 1953 and. has really caught on. The yearly "World Championship" Champion-ship" held in mid-July on Fiesta Island in the San Diego area draws over 700 teams to compete in more than 1500 games. This wild event fosters a competition between teams not only to outdo each other on the field, but also in thinking up team names. Names such as "No Fat Chicks," "Major Herpes & The Foreign Lesion," and "Natalie Woodn't Float" are a sampling of the tamer entries. Sponsoring and coordinating coordinat-ing the yearly event is the Old Mission Beach Athletic Club (OMBAC). They set up rules "No babies, no bowsers bow-sers (four-legged), and no bottles," etc. and run the huge tournament. It was members of OMBAC OM-BAC and Joy Rasmussen of the Park City Recreation Department who brought the Over-The-Line craziness to Park City in 1981. This year's third annual Park City edition was again run by OMBAC members who made the trek from California. Doug Nickels, Lynn Brown fed balls by one of his teammates, who kneels near the batter and tosses the ball up for him to hit. When hit, the ball must go over "the line" and between the extended boundary lines. Any ball hitting before "the line" is an out. Two fouls, balls hitting outside the boundaries, are an out One j5Wing without hitting the ball, a strike, is an out. Three hits in a row score a run, and a home run can be had by pounding it over the last man in the field. To save on broken appendages, ap-pendages, a mushy softball is used. It is somewhat difficult to catch with your bare hands, but it doesn't hurt (unless you drop it) . Those were the general rules for the tournament. Games on the first day-Saturday day-Saturday were to run four innings, while Sunday's deciding de-ciding games were set for five. The first opponent for "Barney Clarke's Heartthrobs" Heart-throbs" was the "Bushwhackers." "Bush-whackers." We thought we were ready, but our bats weren't. We lost 2-1. This was a double elimination tournament, so we still had some life left, but we were palpitating. Into the loser's bracket we went. Our next "loser" opponent was the "Clubbers." "Club-bers." They had a first name, but I can't bring myself to type it. We opened up a 2-0 lead after the first inning and went on to win 5-0. Our secret . f , . , t. , - . - ';- i - " ' Members of the winning team: (L-R) John Whiteley, Pam Hart and Vinny Buonadonna. (alias Brownie), and myself were entered as a team in this year's event. Our name "Barney Clarke's Heartthrobs'a Heart-throbs'a sick, but effective effec-tive title. We joined 29 other teams with equally disgusting disgust-ing names. We got to the field at 9 a.m. sharp. (Joy had said in the entry form to be "prompt.") At 9:10 a stylish motor home pulled up to the field and out popped a band of men outfitted in blue Hawaiian shirts: the OMBAC officials had arrived. While we were waiting for things to get going I thought about the rules of Over-The-Line, Park City style. First, there is the problem of sand. Since Park City is obviously lacking in this department, the City Park grasslands would have to do. As for the rules, teams had to be made up of two guys and one girl. The girls could wear gloves but the guys couldn't. The field started with a 60-foot line "The line." From one side of "the line" a triangle was formed, with the batting to be done where the lines intersected. On the other side of "the line" the boundaries extended ex-tended straight out. There is no pitcher from the other team. The batter is was to use a lighter bat, making it easier to slap the ball instead of really trying to club it. The "Clubbers" were philosophical after their defeat. de-feat. The hot sun and the smU bathing suits of the spectators were taking their toll. "It's a great tournament. tourna-ment. Beautiful women," said Chuck Ballard about the loss. "We didn't have enough sno-cones (spiked)," explained ex-plained Jeff Ihle, another "Clubber." Victory was sweet, but we didn't have long to savor it. "Tuna Canyon" was our next opponent. Timely hitting by Doug and gold-glove fielding by Brownie pushed us to victory 11-5, sending the "Tuna Canyon" squad to the showers. This was becoming fun. I was changing my opinion of this funky softball mutant called Over-The-Line. Our next team was tough to play and pronounce, "Front Back Half Fat Back." It was 1 p.m. and getting quite toasty, but we were still in it. Our hitting was wilting, however, and we went into the bottom of the fourth losing 5-1. But this was not the "Heartthrobs'" time for seizure. sei-zure. We calmly tied up the score and then it was up to me to hit in the winning run. I choked. We went into extra innings. The "Backs" got one run in the top of the fifth on a slicing hit by their shapely female, then we again tied it up. We held them to no runs in the sixth, but at that point hits were used to break the tie. They were up by two hits. My "Throb" teammates punched out the tying two hits, then it was my chance to redeem myself. I nervously nervous-ly dinked the ball inches over "the line" and we had won. AH we had to do now was win one more game and we would advance to Sunday's play. We instead suffered a failure, "Barney Clarke's Heartthrobs" had a massive batting seizure losing to "Your Team Sucks" by the score of 2-1. It was over. We were double-eliminated. It always was a dumb game anyway, sissy stuff! Sunday appropriately turned out gray and rainy, the opposite of Saturday's brilliant sunshine. Whereas about 150 people came to watch the Saturday action, only about 40 braved the rain on Sunday. The teams were gradually whittled down to the final three. "Team Beam," Park City's still undefeated entry, would face the winner of the meeting of two teams made up of OMBAC members from San Diego. "Why Does Dale's Nose Stink" consisted of Kathy Aunan, Dale Gross, and Virginia Harvey. The other San Diego team, "Eat The Peanuts Out Of My , Grady," put up Tom Sexton, Grady Dutton, and Park City's own Joy Rasmussen. Timely hitting by Dale and a last inning choke by Joy won the game for the "Noses." The "Peanut Eaters" had to settle for third place. The final game was at hand. Park City's "Team Beam" was made up of Vinny Buonadonna, John Whiteley, and Pam Hart. They were the favorites because they were the only undefeated team left. "Team Beam" would have to be beaten twice by the "Stinky Noses" if the San Diegans were to emerge victorious. The task was formidable, however, because "Team Beam" had not allowed a single run in their five previous encounters. The game turned out to be a mismatch as "Team Beam" cruised to a 6-0 victory, again shutting out their opponents and winning the Third Annual Park City Over-The-Line Tournament. Spectator Tim Lee, a member of the Jan's Mountain Moun-tain Glad-e-aters softball team, approved of the "Team Beam" performance, perfor-mance, "I thought the Silver Curtain defense of Team Beam was impressive." Tim also gave his feelings on Over-The-Line. He said, "I liked the game, it was fast, but I think I'll stick to softball." I agree that the third annual Over-The Line Tournament Tour-nament was a neat diversion from the regular softball season the sun, the many skimpy bathing suits, the beer, and the games were a great way to spend a weekend in the mountains. Come Wednesday night, though, I'll be ready to put my glove back on and get back to the real thing. |