William LeBruno of the Shore Regional All-Star team flips the ball to teammate Tyler Trimble during the June 22 District 19 Little League playoff game against Colts Neck at the Marlboro Little League complex. Shore Regional advanced with a 15-5 victory. SCOTT FRIEDMAN When Jack Donahue co-founded the Woodpeckers men’s softball team in 1976, he did not imagine that he would one day play alongside his sons and son-in-law.
“I’ve stopped playing now, but I started in ’76,” he said. “It started like any other group, with residents of Freehold Township, but over time it converted to sons, and we even have a few grandsons coming on.
“You can’t name another team from those days that is still around playing,” Donahue said. “It is very remarkable, but it is because we are not strictly a softball team.”
Softball, for the Woodpeckers and for thousands of men and women in central New Jersey, has come to represent more than a sport or hobby. It is a summertime tradition that, for many, is all about the night out with friends. Winning is secondary.
Players run through their pre-game routines before a Sunday morning softball game at Veterans Park in Old Bridge. FRANK WOJCIECHOWSKI Donahue pitched for the Woodpeckers in the Freehold Township men’s softball league for nearly four decades, and still serves as a coach by setting the lineup and helping to “direct the fun,” he said.
During a game last month, Donahue and another original Woodpecker, Bill O’Brien, sat in the dugout and realized the team on the field was composed almost entirely of offspring of the inaugural team and those who married in.
“We looked out on the field and Bill said, ‘Look at that, every position is manned by a son,’ ” Donahue said. “I didn’t know it, but the transition had gone full circle.” And don’t count Donahue out yet. With his grandsons a couple years from playing, he hasn’t officially hung up his cleats.
First-generation Woodpeckers Jack Donahue (l-r), Steve Griffith, Jim Panagos, Lou Moreto and Bill O’Brien celebrated the team’s 30th anniversary in 2005. “It’s conceivable that I will pitch one game or at least part of a game this year,” he said. “I want to show the guys that I can still find the plate.”
Alan Walker’s team, the Black Sox, also plays in the Freehold Township league, and most of the 14-man roster has a bond that goes back decades.
“We all know each other from either grade school or high school,” he said. “There’s a connection between all of us, whether we played for Freehold Township or some of the guys played for Freehold Borough.” “It’s a nice time to get out, because we all enjoy the camaraderie between one another.”
Despite the social focus, teams still play to win. Donahue said his team has won about six championships in his 37-year career, the last one coming in 2010.
Walker, who is a Freehold Township Parks and Recreation commissioner, has been playing for more than 20 years, and estimates that his teams have won five or six championships. He currently plays outfield.
The Woodpeckers and Black Sox faced off against each other on June 19, and though the Black Sox won, 7-4, nobody was too concerned about the outcome of a game marked by some good-natured ribbing — “You used to be able to beat out that grounder …” — and plenty of laughs.
Walker said the teammates, and often the opponents, are friends on and off the field. This is what keeps him and others playing through the decades.
“We do a lot of things socially,” he said. “A couple of weeks ago, we did a comedy night together, and we have team barbecues during the season. It’s a social thing as much as it is getting out and actually playing.”
In leagues such as Freehold Township’s, teams of guys in their 20s often find themselves playing against teams a couple decades older, even facing the occasional pitcher in his 50s or 60s. Walker, who played baseball at Richard Stockton College of New Jersey, Galloway, said the mindset is different for the younger players.
“I think they look at it in a different way,” he said. “In 10 years, if they are still playing, they may look at it in a different light. For them, it is something to do on a Wednesday or Friday night. For [those of] us who are married with kids, it is our one night out a week.”
Several other softball leagues in the area come under the umbrella of the Central Jersey Softball Association (CJSA), including co-ed and men’s leagues in Old Bridge, co-ed and men’s leagues in Cliffwood, a men’s league in Middletown, a Monmouth County league in Hazlet and Middletown, and an Ocean County league in Lakewood.
Chris Salicco, commissioner of the CJSA, said the organization began modestly five years ago.
“My league’s been around for about five years, and I started with the modified pitch for adult men,” he said. “Right now, I probably have over 100 teams. Some of them are older teams, and some of them are younger teams.”
In Salicco’s leagues, teams select their divisions based on skill level and location.
“I have teams coming into Old Bridge where some come from North Jersey, some come from Staten Island,” he said. “It is probably my A-division teams that will travel more. The local teams are more the recreational teams that want to have fun. They don’t want to go out there and play a top team and get blown out.”
While he runs the league, Salicco, a Jackson resident, said he doesn’t play anymore, because he does not want to play in a league that he also runs. Salicco played softball on Staten Island for 20 years, and after moving to New Jersey, he saw the need for a more recreational softball league, he said.
“The league I played in was in Old Bridge,” he said. “You had 16 teams in there and you had teams that were probably semi-pro teams. It wasn’t fun.”
According to Salicco, the leagues with the most teams are the men’s league in Old Bridge, which has about 36 teams, and the league in Middletown, with 20 teams.
Chris Styles plays in a Sunday morning slow-pitch league in Old Bridge, where teams also have staying power.
“I’ve played with the guys on my team for the past 13 years,” Styles said of his team, Sure Hit. “Most of the teams in Old Bridge are teams that are friends. Everybody has families where the wives and the kids come to watch.”
Styles said there is a gap in the talent level of the 12-team league.
“There is a varying degree of talent among the teams,” he said. “Some of the teams just want get out on a Sunday and play softball. There are six or seven very competitive teams, and the rest just want to come out on a Sunday, play and have a beer.”
Another trend is the increasing popularity of co-ed leagues.
Salicco said that when he began, there was a women’s league in Old Bridge that has morphed into a coed league.
“The first year out we didn’t get a lot of teams, but started the program with six teams,” he said. “Now, this fall we are looking at at least 10 to 12 teams in our Wednesday night league.
“I see that area growing, and there is a lot of interest in that. It is a lot of fun and it’s not intense, it’s not the semi-pro teams,” he added. “I have a couple of teams that are all family, with a husband, wife and their kids playing.”
Whether Donahue, who retired from his job as a chief financial officer in April, will ever throw another pitch remains to be seen, but he and his friends will always be part of the team they founded.
“The Woodpeckers are a softball team, but much more than that,” he said. “The fact that I don’t play anymore, I’m still a Woodpecker, and guys like me are still Woodpeckers and we still have fun.”