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Photograph by Skye Dunlap
Members of the "4 Decades" still give younger teams a challenge.
Break up the Decades
By Sam Scott
Time has taken its toll on the softball players of "4 Decades." A couple of the players run as if they've got hamstrings as elastic as cold rubber bands. Coach Jim Thorne jokes that everyone fights to play designated hitter and that first base is reserved for the guys with the sorest arm. But 28 years after forming a championship intramural softball team at San Jose State, the players still swing the bats and win.
The team recently won the 2000 Sunnyvale city softball title, marking the fourth decade in which it topped the Sunnyvale heap. The team's name celebrates their success.
Victories these days often come against opponents who were barely walking when the original "4 Decades" players got together--a fact that makes winning all the sweeter for the veteran players in their late 40s.
"It gives us a lot of satisfaction to beat the younger guys," Larry Ceccato says. "We're still pretty competitive."
Of the original 12 players from the 1970s--most of whom met while living on the same floor of Markham Hall at SJSU--seven remain. They've gone from fresh-faced freshman to adults just spitting distance from qualifying for senior discounts. During all this time they've kept in touch through softball. The camaraderie is as much a part of the reason for showing up as winning.
"These are the people, other than my parents, who I've known the longest," says Terry Youmans, who commutes more than three hours from Placerville to Sunnyvale to play in the weekly games. "We've gone through so much together. Softball keeps us together."
Spectators are rare at the games. Three decades is a long time to keep up fan support, but no one seems to mind. The games are followed by food and drink, a trip to pizza parlor or the pub. "We never go home right after," Tony Garcia says. "It our time to hang out." Youmans says absent players from as far away as Saudi Arabia have called the post-game party, trying to find out the results.
The team is not all gray-hairs. As some of the original group have dropped out, new blood has come in. Steve Machado, a heavy slugger in his mid-30s, has been on the team for 10 years after meeting some of the players on a basketball court. Thirty years of stories doesn't bother him.
"I've heard them so many times," he says. "I know them all by now."
Whether the team still will be playing in the next decade remains to be seen. Ceccato says the end remains out of sight.
"I think as long as we can pretty much see the ball I think we'll continue to play."
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Sunnyvale, California Since 1994
