16-inch softball was created on Chicago's Near South Side and has a hall of fame in Forest Park. It is now celebrating its 135th anniversary.
, the Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for the Chicago Daily News, Sun-Times and Tribune during a 1982 interview with filmmaker Scott Jacobs. "I tell ya, the Pulitzer Prize doesn't even compare."
This month, Chicago's quintessential game is celebrating its 135th anniversary, ironically on a day which is associated with football. Back on Thanksgiving Day in 1887 Nov. 24 was that years date for the holiday a group of students from Harvard and Yale created the game at the Farragut Boat Club on the Near South Side in Chicago.
"Back in the day, every neighborhood had a team, along with guys from different factories and manufacturing plants," Rowan recalled. Cavanaugh would eventually play for a team sponsored by Commonwealth Edison, one of the dozens of 16-inch teams with ties to corporations. And in the media, Mike Royko sponsored teams for all of his newspapers the Daily News, the Sun-Times and the Tribune.
Despite these almost inevitable injuries, the folks who play 16-inch softball wouldn't have the game any other way. "We can do hesitation moves, step off the mound, pitch from either side of the plate," Cavanaugh said. "It's all about trying to throw the batter off and getting him to think too much out there.""You play in the parking lot with a keg on the side, and the team that wins buys the keg," Rowan said. "The friends you make in the game is what makes it special.
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