PLAYERS: The Menifee league would be the only one for females 45 and over in the Inland area.
10:00 PM PDT on Tuesday, August 1, 2006
The Press-Enterprise
To Play
Show up at 6:30 p.m. Wednesdays at Wheatfield Park, 30627 Menifee Road, Menifee
Call Gayle Hatten, 951-506-6021
Bring a glove, $2 and water
No experience necessary
MENIFEE - Three hours of driving for 70 minutes of softball.
That's the sacrifice Gayle Hatten and four friends from southwestern Riverside County made for seven years to play in a senior women's softball league.
Sick of the drive to Westminster in Orange County, they want to form a league in Menifee.
Fifty women from 45 to 77 from Temecula to Joshua Tree to Banning have expressed interest. About 25 are showing up for Wednesday night scrimmages at Wheatfield Park in Menifee. Hatten hopes to attract 60 regulars so she can form a four-team recreational league.
The Menifee league would be the only one for 45-plus women in the Inland area, Hatten said.
Senior men's leagues exist in Menifee, Hemet and Palm Springs, said Frank Colmus, commissioner of the Hemet league. In 15 years with the league, Colmus said he only has received one or two calls from women asking about a women's senior league.
On Wednesday nights in Menifee, Hatten serves as organizer, coach, scorekeeper and umpire.
Before play starts, she sets up a table next to the field. Players fill out a card with their name, contact information and a list of medical conditions. Two dollars go into an envelope to help pay for lighting the field. Pieces of masking tape serve as nametags.
"Have you played before?" is a common question.
"Years ago" is a common answer.
One woman asked another about a pulled muscle from the previous week. A third woman wondered aloud if she could bend over far enough to put on her shoes.
The women said they play for the camaraderie, to stay active and love of the sport.
Menifee resident Mary Dyer, 71, is one of the women who made the weekly Westminster trips.
Dyer, a member of the Brooklyn Red Devils roller derby team in the 1950s, played softball in high school and picked it up again when she was 65.
"I refuse to let myself get old," she said.
Cindy Carrillo, a 45-year-old Winchester resident, came out to play for the first time after her friend and co-worker at the Temecula Unified School District, Nan DeFelice, 61, told her about the league.
Carrillo had not played softball since elementary school.
As she sat in the dugout, her sons, sons, Joseph, 16, and Jesse, 13, sat behind her on their skateboards.
When asked why they came out, Jesse said, "Because we had nothing else to do."
Carrillo quickly corrected him.
"No, you came to cheer on your mother," she said. "Actually, they came to see if I could play baseball."
Beverly Farris, a 56-year-old Menifee resident, also was there for the first time and also had family watching. They included her husband, a son and daughter and two grandchildren.
Farris, who walks, plays tennis and volleyball, sees softball as another way to stay active.
Inspired by Farris, her husband, Sylvester, 60, plans on joining the men's softball league in Menifee. He used to play every weekend.
"I think she's gonna do better," he said. "I gotta give her a little training."
Maureen Petroff, 59, and Sheila Morris, 66, have been making the four hour roundtrip drive between Joshua Tree and Menifee to say active and because of the friendships they have developed.
Plus, Petroff added, "I'm not willing to sit in a rocking chair yet."
Reach Sean Nealon at 951-375-3730 or
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