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We were in a serious predicament. Brian Christie
had moved to Arizona over the winter. Al Brown was still nursing his injured
thumb and there was no timetable as to when, and if, he would ever return. Mark Christie, fresh off his fourth knee surgery, made it clear that his softball
career was over. Neil Christie's ongoing battle against AIDS had progressed to a point where just coming out into the cool night air had become risky, and he announced his retirement. Gary
Matsushita cited work issues as his reason for stepping out of the AWA lineup. And Mike Applegate's troublesome knee was going to require surgery.
We needed players, and for the first time in many years, a complete renovation of the AWA roster was about to occur. The call went out for new blood. Coming aboard were infielders Tim Cone and Jody Fuller, along with outfielders Jerry Hills and Mike Wheeler. And Dan Degnon, who had
been an off-and-on player for a few years, agreed to come aboard full time. When recently retired outfielder Steve Barrett came by to watch a game one night, he wondered aloud, "Who are these guys?"
Suddenly, AWA had youth, some new-found power, and a little speed to go along with the oldtimers. And dividends paid off immediately as AWA opened the 1997 season with a solid 19-8 win over long-time rival Second Wind, prompting those guys to wonder after the game, "Who are these guys?"
AWA rolled to an 8-2 record during the spring season, the best in
the league, while we lit up the scoreboard, posting wins of 19-3, 33-6, 35-22, and 20-7. The team was poised to make another run at the championship, but the team was done in by its own arrogance -- or rather the Coach's. Nortel, the team we had thoroughly whipped 33-6 during the regular season, showed up for this playoff game with a bunch of different players filling out the lineup. We could have called them on it with a roster check, but AWA had seized an early lead, and Coach Applegate felt we were strong enough to beat them anyway. He was wrong. Nortel emerged with a 15-8 victory that left the team very frustrated. What felt worse was Nortel getting busted with a roster check in the championship final. We felt cheated, but there was no one to blame but the decision not to question their roster from the outset. The Coach promised the team that would not happen again.
Despite the team's failure in the spring playoffs, AWA was moved up a division. Although the going was much tougher during the summer, the bats still continued to light up the scoreboard. We finished with a 6-4 record, highlighted by victories over each of the division champs (12-6 over California Thunder and 22-21 over The Professionals). The low point of the summer was our ugly 30-29 loss to hated rival Big Sticks.
We made the playoffs again, which gave us one last chance to make it a championship season. But that dream was squashed in the first round -- again. California Thunder spotted AWA an early 8-0 lead, but then rallied to crush the boys of AWA 19-9.
The countdown to AWA's 10,000th all-time hit was watched all year until mid-July, when Tom Sukup lashed a bad-hop double past third base. It wasn't a line drive, but we ruled it a hit -- the 10,000th in the team's long history. The entire 1997 season was an amazing one, as the team set all kinds of hitting and scoring records. We batted .518 as a team while scoring over 13 runs per game. The team finished with an overall record of 16-13. More importantly, the new guys, outside of Greg Brown and Randy Carter, were the only players to show up on a regular basis. There was a new chemistry, and the guys were having a ball.
But more changes were in order for the 1998 campaign. Bruce Christie cited age as his reason for hanging up the old glove for good. Steve Wilson also stepped away from the game. After one season in California, slugging outfielder Jerry "Scooby" Hills moved back to his native New York. And Tom Sukup broke his arm prior to the start of the season. We were short on bodies again.
Again the call went out, and this time the old and the new responded. The old returnees were Steve Sammut and Al Brown. The new came in the form of young Jamie Sammut, Joe's son.
The team reeled off five straight wins to start the year, mostly close, hard-fought games that really tested the team's mettle. Included in this streak was a solid 8-6 victory over Sox Exchange, the team regarded as the best in the league. But we were really winning with smoke and mirrors, and over the second half of the spring campaign the team struggled to a final 6-4 league record, just good enough to squeak into the playoffs.
Waiting for AWA in the first round was Mariani, who just three weeks before had dominated AWA 16-3. Mariani was very young, very loud, and very cocky. And AWA came out very flat, falling behind early, and entering the bottom of the fifth, AWA trailed 8-1. The players in Mariani's dugout were already celebrating their victory, but AWA staged one of the great rallies in team history, scoring nine times in the fifth to take a 10-8 lead. Mariani took back the lead with three runs in the sixth, but AWA pulled off one last rally to claim a thrilling 13-11 victory, putting us into the championship final against dreaded Sox Exchange.
Coming into this game, AWA had never lost a league championship final, going a perfect 7-0 in these games. But that all ended this night as Sox Exchange scored 10 times in the first inning and then coasted home to win the game 18-6.
We were moved up a division for the summer, which was dominated by poor play all around. The team struggled to a 2-8 league record, giving us a 9-15 overall mark for the season. Meanwhile, the personnel losses continued to mount. Tim Cone left the team at midseason, and slugger Greg Brown came down with a mysterious illness that knocked him out late in the year.
Well, here we were again. A new year -- 1999 -- and an AWA roster already depleted by a variety of maladies was devastated by the career-ending injuries to Randy Carter and Al Brown. The call went out again, and four more new additions came on board. Mike Seabury and Buddy Grimm were solid additons to the team, but it was finding infielder Fred Forster and outfielder Maytheni Allen that really infused the team with young hitting talent.
The 1999 season was no picnic as the team bumbled its way to loss after loss, many of them by wide margins. We were generating plenty of runs, but we were also giving them back in bundles. It was one thing to look old on defense. Far too often we simply looked bad. The team limped through the spring season with a 3-7 record. The one bright moment came against hated Big Sticks. Trailing 10-1 early on, the team scored 18 runs in the second inning and cruised to a 24-18 win.
The summer saw the heralded return of star outfielder Greg Brown, who got his big bat going to lead AWA to a 6-4 record, and a spot in the playoffs. The team was psyched for its playoff opener against Vapor Lock, a team AWA had dispatched 22-17 just one week before. But one bad inning did us in. The top of the first seemed like an eternity as AWA booted, misjudged, and misplayed enough balls to fill a season, let alone one inning, and the team found itself in a 15-0 hole. The team never gave up, and pecked away at the deficit until we entered the bottom of the seventh trailing 24-17. A furious last-ditch rally ensued, capped by a two-out grand slam homer by Maytheni Allen. AWA fell short by a 24-22 count, but what an end to our 25th anniversary season!
Entering what would be the final year of AWA softball, the 2000 version of the team shared little with the AWA teams of the previous three decades. Only Greg Brown, Joe Sammut, and Mike Applegate had any memory of the "good old days". And in addition to the core group of players who had been added in the last couple of seasons, newcomers Ralph Parraz, Nick Suarez, and Frank Chavez came on board for our final run.
We were a team loaded with players who could hit, and our reputation as a high-scoring club was already well-established. But we were also a team notorious for poor defense, and while the guys had fun trying to outscore the opposition, it was pretty evident that this version of AWA Enterprises was one that was not going to win anything.
Early in the spring, the team put together the inning for the ages, scoring 26 times in one inning enroute to a 48-8 thrashing of EA Sports. On the other hand, this was our only victory against five defeats. So much for offense.
But the team suddenly started to win, and behind some sharp, mistake-free defense, the guys reeled off four straight victories to close out the spring season with a 5-5 record. Ordinarily, a 5-5 record would have kept AWA out of the playoffs. But the division race was as even as it could get, and AWA, on the strength of a stirring 18-16 victory over the Other Bleacher Bums, not only made the playoffs, but on tie-breakers actually won the division!
The first round of the playoffs had AWA squaring off against Cisco-SCM, a team we had defeated 19-17 during the regular season. But Cisco had been having roster problems down the stretch, and when they showed for this game loaded with players who clearly were not on the roster, Coach Mike Applegate did not make the mistake he made just three years before. Midway through the second inning he requested a roster check, and Cisco failed miserably. Amidst a fair amount of grumbling by Cisco, AWA was awarded the forfeit victory.
This put the team into the championship final against the Other Bleacher Bums, who had pulled off a shocking upset of the league's best team in their opener. The Bums were a team much like AWA -- a veteran club who could hit, but who also had problems on defense. With the Coach extolling his troops to "just keep hitting", AWA pulled out a solid 19-14 triumph. And we celebrated our eighth league championship.
The team was moved up a division in the summer, and against the tougher competition, and battling our own injuries, AWA stumbled home with a 3-7 summer record, despite the late-season return of old AWA favorites Tom Sukup and Steve Sammut. We completed the 2000 season with a 23-10 loss to Evening Wood, and even after the postgame beers and the promises to do this again the following spring, the oldtimers suspected that this was the end.
Mike Applegate, the heart and soul of the team for all 26 seasons, announced his retirement as a player prior to that last game, and veterans Greg Brown and Tom Sukup soon followed suit. The AWA Enterprises Softball Club officially folded in the spring of 2001, and after 26 wonderful and memorable seasons, it was finally over.
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