They grew up playing baseball, but when they became adults, they took the speed and fun of their youth and played softball.

And they still gather once a month at the City of Newburgh’s Fast Pitch Softball Hall of Fame.

“I was playing up until three years ago,” said Al Rhodes, “and I am 93.”
A knee injury forced Rhodes to finally stop, and he was playing slow-pitch when he finally put his glove down. He was inducted into Newburgh’s Fast-Pitch Hall of Fame in 2001, and he played a game that was popular decades ago when the ball was coming to the batter at about 85 miles and hour from a distance of 45-feet.

In 1991, a Hall of Fame was founded in a lone building at the city’s recreational facility, adjacent to Delano-Hitch Stadium, and now there are about 220 members, men and women, in what could be considered a very concentrated honorarium with plaques lining all the wall space, along with balls, bats, and uniforms and cleats once worn by players.

“It’s just to keep the memories of softball in Newburgh,” said John Guidice, who was inducted in 2003 after helping to create the hall.
Hall members meet there for lunch and their monthly meeting, and every year they award a $500 scholarship to a graduating player on Newburgh Free Academy’s softball team.

Slow-pitch is a still a popular form of the game. Between slow-pitch and fast-pitch is medium-pitch, which is also played by some leagues in the region. But the fast-pitch and medium-pitch leagues are far fewer than the slow-pitch leagues.

Getting into the hall of fame requires a recommendation. And to check that recommendation, a bookshelf full of binders, full of yellowed newspaper clippings sitting in a corner of the hall, is a source used by members to verify an applicant’s heroics as a player long ago.

Former players, who gathered last week, played men’s fast-pitch in Newburgh following World War II, and through its peak years into the 1970s. Fast-pitch softball is primarily played now in high school and at the collegiate level by girls and women.

Jessica Ruckdeschel, who was inducted in 2015, played for a Newburgh travel team in the mid-90s that played its games at home in the city. Ruskdeschel also played a pair of Marlboro sectional championships teams and at SUNY Dutchess.

As time passes, members worry at times if the city will take away the space they made to honor those that brought much excitement to the playing diamonds on countless summer nights before large crowds decades ago.
But Guidice and the others admit, while time passes and memories fade, there is no threat of that happening at this time.

“We’ll do whatever we need to do to keep it here,” said Nick Muscarella, a hall member.