WAYLAND, Mass. (AP) - The roughest, toughest, fiercest player in the Eastern Massachusetts Senior Softball League is a guy by the name of Jimmy Wong.
Wong, who is white-haired, big-eared, and roughly the size of a kitchen mop, does not look like the roughest, toughest anything. His game-day uniform consists of a T-shirt and khaki pants, both of which hang loosely from his frame. He prefers a pair of dusty golf shoes to baseball spikes and uses an antique glove so worn that it took a pair of teammates five minutes to make out a model number.
Don’t be fooled. Beneath that humble exterior - the slow gait and unassuming smile - is a stone-cold killer.
At 87, Wong is not only the oldest player in the 31-team, 350-player EMASS league, he’s also one of the best. Of the past nine teams Wong has pitched for, six have finished in first place. He once threw 13 straight scoreless innings in a division championship to lead his team to victory, no small feat in the high-scoring world of slow-pitch softball. And last year, at 86, he was voted the MVP of the league’s National Division - though some players grumble that he should have taken home the award the season before, too.
This season, he is the starting pitcher for the Elders, which means that every summer Saturday he can be found toeing the rubber at some local ball field, making life miserable for opposing hitters.
Teammates, many of whom are 20 years younger, describe Wong with a combination of awe and wonder. They marvel at his ability to put the ball anywhere he wants to - outside, inside, high, low. They say he’s blessed with a mind for the game. That he knows which batters like to pull the ball, which hit for power - and acts accordingly.
“When you get in the box against him, you can just see him looking to out-think you,” explains Elders co-manager Larry Swartz, 64.
“He never walks a guy unless he wants to,” insists Larry Costello, the Elders’ 58-year-old shortstop.
“If you get down 0-2 with Jimmy,” adds John Stewart, 83, one of the league’s founders, “you might as well give up.”
Raised in Northampton, Wong grew up playing city league softball and basketball. Eventually, he headed off to war, came back, married, and raised three children in Framingham. He worked 40 years for the Army Corps of Engineers (“Nice pension,” he says), then took up softball in 1997 when a friend mentioned the league could use another pitcher.
He is a man of few words. It is not unheard of for teammates to go entire games without hearing him speak, and it took a bit of finagling to get him to participate in this story. Wong has, after all, spent the past two decades happy to let his performance do the talking.
On the mound, he is something of a maestro. His underhand release is quick and methodical, the ball rolling softly from his fingertips and arcing toward the plate. Occasionally, he motions for his fielders to adjust their alignment. He honors good defensive play with a thumbs-up. And when the side has been retired, he shuffles back to the dugout, sitting in silence until he’s needed once more.
For their part, opposing players love Wong, even if they’re not always keen on being rendered hitless by a man who predates the Great Depression.
During one recent game, for instance, these were some of the things opponents could be heard muttering after Wong had induced them into harmless pop-ups or weak groundballs:
“(Expletive)!”
“(Expletive)!”
“(Expletive)!”
Wong himself is no stranger to the occasional bout of hyper-competitiveness, which might explain why some of his managers have taken to sidling up to him, asking his advice before making a strategic move.
Says Dick Willis, co-manager of the Elders: “There have been some occasions, you could say, where he wasn’t too happy with lineup changes or position changes - and wasn’t shy about (saying) it.”
That’s Jimmy Wong for you. Tough, old-school, a guy who “doesn’t get into a lot of that rah-rah (stuff),” as Dave Kern, who coordinates the National Division, puts it. He is still known to go barreling into second base, feet first, when the situation calls for it. And it was only recently that he allowed coaches to pinch-run for him; previously, the idea of being pulled from a game, even temporarily, irked him.
How Wong has maintained this level of intensity for so long is anyone’s guess. Given the league’s minimum age of 50, the midseason injury report can read like an emergency room admission chart - pulls, tears, broken fingers, dislocated shoulders. But since joining the league, Wong has never been hurt, missing only two or three games in 20 years.
In January 2003, a pesky triple-bypass surgery threatened that streak. But he was right back on the mound when the season rolled around in the spring.
“That wasn’t going to slow him down,” explains Lucy, Wong’s wife of nearly 60 years.
Besides, Wong is too busy for injuries. Deeming a few hours lobbing softballs each weekend to be insufficient activity, he packs his schedule with a smorgasbord of extracurriculars. There’s the candlepin bowling league, where he sports a 97 average, and the 8-ball pool league, where his team is vying for its third consecutive league title. Three or four times a week, meanwhile, he heads to Leo J. Martin Memorial Golf Course in Weston, where he breezes through 18 holes and, Swartz guesses, “probably carries his clubs.” (He does).
How much more softball does the ol’ MVP have in him? How many more innings might that rail-thin right arm possess?
“Every year, we keep waiting to see, geez, is he going to play another year?” Kern says.
And every year, there’s Wong on opening day, tossing pitches.
Midway through last Saturday’s doubleheader, Wong paused briefly to chat about his longevity - a run that has left countless players wondering how a guy nearing 90 can be going so strong.
“I don’t know about going strong,” Wong says, before making his slow trek back to the mound. “But I’m still goin’.”
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Information from: The Boston Globe, https://www.bostonglobe.com
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