Veteran Coach Keeps Fast-Pitch Tradition Alive

Pleas for grass always went unheeded, so brick dust covers the outfield as well as the infield, and each February it gets in the blood of a dinosaur named Irvin (Red) Meairs, owner and coach of the Long Beach Nitehawks, perhaps the most renowned fast-pitch softball team in the country.

Meairs lugged bats into Joe Rodgers Field at Recreation Park last weekend and even swung some as the Nitehawks, 10-time world International Softball Congress champions, prepared for the season.

Sweat darkened Meairs’ dusty old red and black cap and dotted the crosshatched flesh on his neck as he threw batting practice.

A chaw of tobacco was in his cheek.

“We’ll be a young, scrappy club with good defense and good pitching,” Meairs said of this year’s team, which holds its preseason tournament March 8-10. The Nitehawks, 46-15 last season, have not won the world title since 1975, their longest drought.

Meairs is 62 now, a big man hobbled slightly by time and a bad knee, but he refuses to relinquish his uniform or his devotion to a sport that has died in many places.

And he won’t, he says, “as long as I can hang in there.”

Meairs was a catcher for the Nitehawks in the 1950s and ‘60s when fast-pitch thrived and his hair was still red.

Void That Has Never Been Filled

His huge hands are gnarled from all those nights of catching human windmills, who threw white blurs under dim lights with such vigor that their bodies appeared to be hurtling toward the plate too.

But the old windmills gradually disappeared and left a void that has never been filled. The pitchers made fast-pitch and without them the game in many towns had to pack it in.

Slo-pitch took over. It was easy to hit the ball and suited players who had lacked the courage to face pitchers who whipped in upshoots and downshoots and mean veers at 90 miles an hour from 46 feet.

Players liked slo-pitch because their batting averages were invariably fat, and, unless they had spent several pregame hours in the sponsor’s bar, they never struck out.

But Meairs spit a brown stream contemptuously at the thought of it.

“No way is that softball,” he said. “Just young kids and older fellows who love to drink beer . . . that’s all I can figure out.”

Slo-pitch isn’t the only reason why fast-pitch may never be what it once was. Boys don’t grow up playing softball anymore. They play baseball. High schools have fast-pitch softball teams, but only for girls.

City League Pitching Said Mediocre

“If they had it for boys, there might be some pitchers,” Meairs said.

There are fast-pitch city leagues in Long Beach, but Meairs says the pitching is mediocre.

But fast-pitch at the Nitehawks’ level, which is world class, has survived, thanks to New Zealand, where softball is like baseball is here.

The top teams try to get at least one pitcher from that country. If a player on a team has a business, he’ll offer a job to the New Zealander as a lure.

That’s how the Nitehawks got Alan Wishart, a tall 33-year-old right-hander from Wellington, whom Meairs says is one of the best pitchers he’s seen.

Greg Eaton, the Nitehawks center fielder, was a baseball star for Cerritos College but says his biggest thrill is playing with the Nitehawks.

“They’re nationally famous and everyone wants a chance to play for them,” he said.

Terry Canale, a smooth-fielding shortstop, feels the same.

“This is it as far as softball goes,” said Canale. “It’s a thrill to have your own park and your own fans.”

Randy Clay dreamed of being a Nitehawk since he was the team’s batboy. Encouraged by Meairs and taught by former Nitehawk star Bob Todd, Clay became a pitcher and this season will fulfill his dream.

Mike Bennett, 25, was one of the more promising prospects at a Nitehawks’ tryout last Saturday. He didn’t expect any favors just because his father once was a Nitehawk.

“If you’re good enough, you play on this team, that’s it,” he said.

Not many who attend tryouts are.

Steve Alvarez, 24, came to the tryout wearing jeans, long hair and sunglasses. He had a parrot tattooed on his arm and swung the bat mightily, but his efforts seemed to impress only his aunt, who sat behind the backstop and applauded.

Joe Rodgers, the late flamboyant showman, built the Nitehawks legend and Meairs, who took over in 1968 and has won three world championships, nurtured it.

A mailman for 34 years, Meairs pays for transportation, hotels and food when the Nitehawks go to the world tournament, which is usually held in Tulsa or Kimberly, Wis., or Rock Island, Ill., or Lancaster, Pa. Lacking a sponsor, he gets most of the money from the concession stand he operates with his wife, Connie, at Rodgers Field.

“Red takes care of us, and the man is not wealthy,” center fielder Eaton said. “We don’t stay in fancy hotels, but that’s not the point as long as we have a place to sleep. We usually don’t have to fork up a dime.”

“The last of the great guys,” Wishart says of Meairs.

Meairs says he has not received much help from the city, which refused to put in grass and tore down the old permanent stands because it claimed they had termites. “There were no termites,” Meairs said.

Meairs likes to think of his team as a family, but is saddened because it’s not like it used to be.

“There was a togetherness in the ‘50s and ‘60s,” he said. “Now you don’t know if they’ll show up. When we went to the tournament, we went to play ball. Now they want to have a party.”

Art Borges, a dedicated Nitehawk fan since ‘57, sat on the green bleachers and petted his poodle.

He ticked off the great names in Nitehawks history . . . “Stan White--who could throw a strike to second base while kneeling . . . Cleo Goyette . . . Jack Randall . . . Lucky Humiston . . . Jimmy Jones--he hit down on the ball, bouncing it so high that by the time it came down he’d be on second base.”

The Nitehawks draw an average crowd of between 200 and 300, much less than they used to.

“The first few years, if you didn’t get here early, you’d be standing,” Borges said.

The dinosaur, who has lived three blocks from the ball park all his life, was out in left field in batting practice, guarding a mudhole. “We’ve had a couple of balls ruined by it--and they don’t come cheap, either,” Meairs said.

He banged a fist into his glove.

“It’s so hard to get a sponsor,” he said. “I’m tired of trying.”

He walked after the balls.

“The knee kills me,” he said. “I can’t do anything.”

But in two days he had thrown a lot of pitches and hit countless grounders to his players.

“I’ve got to shag balls now,” he said, hobbling away in the red dirt.