Author: Pete Gallo

Publisher: Xlibris Corporation

Published: 2013-06-28

Total Pages: 135

ISBN-13: 1483645355

Fast-Pitch A lost chapter in the history of America's favorite pastime is finally recovered and retold in brilliant and play-by-play detail in Pete Gallo's book, "Fast-Pitch Fifties." Readers are warmly invited to revisit New Rochelle during the 1950s and discover the Twilight League and windmill baseball at its height as some 20 teams battled for championship titles and local bragging rights. Fast-Pitch recalls a period when local sports was king and a championship series in towns like New Rochelle would draw crowds that were measured in the tens of thousands. Based on interviews and historical accounts, the author brings to life local legends of windmill at its height, such as pitcher Rush Riley who threw a softball at major league speeds and was known for his Olympian endurance, playing up to ten games per week. While many of the names are less familiar, windmill stars who managed national acclaim are also recalled such as Hicksville, Long Island native Roy Stevenson, an early pioneer of windmill pitch who helped inspire a generation of players in the New York metropolitan area. Aimed at sports fans, the book is also the story of an era - one full of memorable characters like 'Popeye' Claps an affable stationery store owner and baseball coach who managed to get Roy Rogers and his troupe to visit New Rochelle for an ad hoc block party for local kids. Then there was Bruce Flowers a professional boxer who helped lead New Rochelle's most-winning windmill team for the decade, the New Rochelle Royals. You will read about Bill Marino, a veteran who lost his arm in World War II, but remarkably managed to recapture personal glory by becoming one of the league's most feared pitchers. The author also finds that windmill's most prominent feature lead to its decline in community sports. It was a game where sheer pitching strength ruled the day, making balancing league play difficult, which helped give rise to its successor, modern "slow-pitch" softball. Though, fast-pitch persists in popularity, particularly among women's college leagues, Gallo brings us back to an era when communities across America were first discovering the game. The book recalls how the social fabric of the 1950s, with its unbridled post-war optimism and corresponding economic boom, provided for a golden era in community sports - from stickball play to fast-pitch. Gallo reminds us of how this amateur recreational league evolved to resemble a full-fledged minor B-ball league, housed in a single city - the Queen City of the Sound.