Legacy Division

Message from the Legacy Division President

WSSA Legacy Ball Players:

As you all probably know, WSSA will be hosting an Association luncheon and awards banquet at Long Leaf Park on Friday, 5 November. It will be catered by one of our WSSA sponsors, Carrabba’s Italian Grill . Please note—this is a free event for all WSSA ball players. If you bring a guest or a spouse, cost is $ 10 for each of them.  I know some of our Legacy ball players may not be able to attend for various reasons. So, I decided to write up this quick summary for “Legacy 2021” and send it out to all of our ball players rather than subject those who do attend the festivities to a long boring speech. All of what I will be addressing here really only applies to the Legacy Division. So here goes—this is the speech I will not be giving at the luncheon.

First and foremost, let’s all give our congratulations to the newest Legacy Hall of Fame inductee- Fred Altman (Able). Fred has been a WSSA member since 1999--22 years.  He joins Dwight Crainshaw (Carolina Bay) who was last year’s inductee. Dwight also joined WSSA 22 years ago. Unfortunately, we did not have an awards ceremony last year, so he and Fred will share honors on 5 November. Congrats to them both. I have played ball with both of them and they are both true gentlemen and great ball players. They will be joining recently retired Legacy Hall of Famers Ken Denne (an umpire now), Bob Perry and George Wesoloski. Those Hall of Famers still actively playing in the Legacy Division include:
 
     LEGENDS                       CHAMPIONS                Carolina Bay                        ABLE       
    Mike Abernathy          George Scelzi           Dwight Crainshaw (2020)    Fred Altman (2021)
    Bob Dempsey                                                                                         Richie Price                    
 
 
These gentlemen average 23 + years of active participation in the league and were instrumental in making WSSA the success it is today. Be sure to congratulate and thank them for their contributions when you see them on the fields this week.     
  
I’d like to thank the managers and the assistant managers for their devotion and work in making this season a success. They include Stu White, Scott Powell, Tom Howley, Henry Winters and Dwight.  A job well done guys. And a special thanx —To Dres Mortenson for picking up the reigns for recently retired Bob Perry (Carolina Bay) – great job Dres! To Gary Kohunsky for his sage advice over the year and guidance as our past Legacy President and a special thanx to John Fort for mentoring me from my first day of league play back in the spring of 2015 and for volunteering to come out of “managerial” retirement to assist on the Legends. You don’t know how much I really appreciate what you did!!  Last but not least, a HUGE thanx to Tom Howley. It can’t be easy as a manager to have the League President on your team. I would come up with some hair brained ideas and you can guess who I would ask first to implement them. Yup—Tom. Thanx Tom for your patience with me and for always being there supporting me. 
 
Also, a shout out to Nicolle and Ann (Champions). You ladies held your own in the league and we really hope to see you back with us in 2022. In fact, we’re hoping we have more ladies join our ranks.
 
It was a great season especially after the Covid fiasco that forced the cancellation of the 2020 season. Thank you to all of the ball players for your participation and comradery.  The 2021 season was fun! No hurricanes to contend with although we did have 12 rain-outs that were rescheduled and one set of games rescheduled due to a gasoline shortage. Go figure!!

For those that think some of our teammates may have lost a step, I did some calculations. We have 16 players in Legacy who are 80 years old and older and another three who will be 80 next year. In short, 30 % of the Legacy players are octogenarians. The average age of a Legacy player is 76.  Wow!! I bet the founders of the league back in 1995 never anticipated what WSSA would look like 26 years later .
 
Congratulations to the first half champion—Carolina Bay, to the second half champion--Champions (hereafter to be known as “Wilmington Team” much like the old Washington Redskins team is now “Washington’s Team”). And a special shout out to the year-end tournament champion – whoever that ends up being    
 

I hope to see y’all on the ball fields again in the spring of 2022.
 
Stay safe and healthy!!
 

Skip Flynn (Able)