Slow-pitch season marks start of summer

Opening day June 6

Here we are again, sports fans: the start of another Crested Butte adult slow-pitch softball season. And just in time, as both the NBA and NHL are wrapping up their seasons.

On Monday as I write this, it’s snowing. But I will guarantee that once softball starts, so too will the summer weather.
The beauty of slow-pitch softball in Crested Butte is many-fold.
For one, there’s never a threat of a lockout, maybe a snow-out, but never a lockout.
Secondly, there’s never the threat of PEDs—that is, Performance Enhancing Drugs. Maybe Perception Enhancing Drugs but certainly not Performance Enhancing Drugs. And let’s be honest, if you are on a regimen of Performance Enhancing Drugs for slow-pitch softball, you’ve got problems.
Third, there are those summer evenings watching the sun set over Red Lady, enjoying your beverage of choice while local athletes put their athleticism to the test.
The list goes on but let’s get to the facts, folks.
Last year, the Airheads took the competitive league title. With the addition of a couple of key players, they were able to rally once again for the title, ending a three-year reign by the Lobar.
The rec league saw another Rasta uprising as the Rasta Hairnets held off a late season surge by KBUT to take the title. The rec league title completed the most successful summer for a local business-sponsored team. The Brick Oven boys are always there to support local sports and their righteous ways paid off in 2010. Their hockey team took the title. Brick Oven co-owner/endurance rider Dan Loftus won the 24 Hours in the Sage. Brick Oven sponsored chainless rider Roman Kolodziej, who won the chainless race, and then their softball team took the title.
It was a franchise four-peat.
This year, there are seven teams signed up for rec league and nine teams in the comp league. Men’s league is still up in the air.
The Airheads look poised to repeat as champions. A majority of their team just won the Gunnison Coed Spring Cow Pattie league last week. The biggest concern for them, I would imagine, would be burnout by the time the post-season rolls around, but I doubt it.
I mean, who could possibly burn out on hanging out in the park, playing softball and drinking beer? Certainly not the Airheads.
Now the rec league is always a crapshoot—case in point: the Gray Hares.
The Hares made a run at the title last season, stunning everyone, themselves included.
While the Rastas are back, there is talk that they are having some issues as a couple of key players may have conflict issues with the schedule.
In addition, you never know when a newly formed team will come charging out of the woodwork to make a run at the rec league title.
Comp league action can be caught every Monday and Wednesday and Rec league play will be on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 5 and 6:30 p.m. All games will be played at Pitsker, Gothic and/or Tommy V field.