A Turn at Bat in the Late Innings

Tracy Hunt of Huntington Beach has had surgery on both his knees but runs the 100-meter dash in 14.02 seconds. He plays softball at least three times a week and has 11% body fat on his 70-year-old frame.

“My doctor said I’d never walk again, and I’m the fastest one on the team,” Hunt said Sunday at a softball game in Anaheim.

Hunt and the other dozen members of Marty’s Anaheim Seniors softball team are among the 1,500 athletes older than 50 who are competing in the 5th annual Crown Valley Senior Olympics. The three-week-long olympics, which includes sports ranging from track and field to shuffleboard, brings older athletes from around Southern California together for socializing and a little friendly competition.

Between innings, the members of Marty’s Seniors swapped war stories and doctors’ advice, but on the field the competition was fierce.

“He’s under 70 and he can’t hear or see,” said manager Marty Roth, 72, heckling the umpire.

“Check that guy’s ID,” Roth yelled after a batter drove a ball deep into center field.

“We argue and scream like we’re 15 years old,” said 71-year-old Wayne Jordan, who hit a home run.

As the oldest softball team in the league, Marty’s Seniors has only three players who are younger than 70. Among them, they represent more than 1,000 years of living. Among the players are those who have fought battles and written sitcoms, but it’s a passion for baseball that brings them together now.

Roth, of Anaheim, organized the 13-player team with a simplified draft, he said.

“We took a mirror and said blow on it. If you fogged it, you made the team,” assistant manager Charlie Wilson, 71, said.

Jordan, of Rosemead, has broken his ankle, foot and thumb, but he’s never missed a game. He said he is putting off hip surgery as long as he can so he can keep playing.

“It feels wonderful to play hard,” Jordan said. “My legs are that of a 20-year-old man. We all have aches and pains, but exercise absolutely makes all the difference.”

There are specific rules for senior softball designed to prevent injury: no sliding, no running into players. Batters can have teammates run for them after first base. And there was a ambulance on site, just in case.

“It’s good for us as long as we don’t get too excited and hurt ourselves,” said Dick Heath, 72, of Long Beach. Jerry Browne, 70, of Orange has an unnoticeable bulge in the left side of his stomach from a defibrillator that will shock his heart if necessary. He had a heart attack two years ago after he was thrown out at first base.

“I put my hand on the chain fence of the dugout, that’s the last thing I remember,” Browne said.

Two of his teammates, who were doctors, tried to resuscitate him and then called for an ambulance.

“They thought I was dead,” Browne said. “My fingertips and nose were all blue.”

Three months later, he was back in the game.

“You just can’t keep us down,” he said Sunday, running out into the field.

Marty’s Seniors lost both games they played Sunday. But the other four teams had an unfair advantage, Wilson said.

“There’s a big difference between 65 and 70,” he explained. “Our reflexes are a little slower.”

On his way to the doubleheader Sunday, Ray Thien of Cypress recalled his very first baseball mitt.

“It was in the middle of the Depression,” Thien said. “I don’t know where Dad got the dough.”

He lost the glove the next day and didn’t get a new one until five years later.

Now 70, Thien was looking for his mitt again. It was on his left hand.

For more information about joining or watching the Senior Olympics, call Cynthia Vaughn at (818) 397-4064.