The Pecan Park Eagle

Jo Hale
Houston Babies Vintage Baseball
Houston Senior Softball
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Sketch By Patrick Lopez

Bill and Jo Hale are two of the happiest, nicest, funnest people to be around in our little Houston baseball circle and what happened this past week could not have happened to two finer human beings and passionate lovers of the game.

As senior league Houston area softball players, the Hales were the special report videotape segment guests this past Wednesday on KPRC-TV Channel 2’s 1:00 PM daily show, Houston Life, hosted by Courtney Zavala & Derrick Shore.

Smiles effusing as ever, the youngest early 70’s couple we know happily reported on their long time love for anything that invited their play of the baseball game format, even if it has to be, in this instance, a larger, softer, thuddier kind of ball than the one we see flying out of Minute Maid Park on wings.

Bill Hale
Houston Babies Vintage Baseball
Houston Senior Softball
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Sketch by Patrick Lopez

Must add here. ~ The Hales are both veteran members of our SABR-based Houston Babies vintage baseball team, a club that has been playing the gloveless version of baseball by the 1860 rules since 2008. As with senior softball, Jo Hale is one of the few women vintage ball players, but she can hold her own with the best of the cloud-free Saturday morning players on the George Ranch plains of vintage contestation any time you care to drop by and watch a game in progress.

And now we hear more in the Houston Life report that she and Bill have been going at it even longer at the “stayin’ alive” local fields of Senior softball. Both Hales are very much in touch with the “use it or lose it” aspect of aging and do a super great job of committing themselves to keeping the motion of body and soul going in the right direction for all the right reasons.

Asked how he felt about competition with younger players, Bill Hale made grinning reference to the fact that he looks forward to taking on the “flat-bellies” any time he gets the chance. Asked how she felt about competing with the men, Jo Hale tossed that one into the gender blindness bag. “Whoever takes me on is going to get my best efforts working to beat them!”

Winners both. ~ Winners all. ~ I am so happy to have met and gotten to know these two great friends and lovers of the game we call baseball!

ESSENTIAL ADDENDUM: This just in from Bill Hale himself ~ as a comment below that could have been the headline of this column, had we know about it in time. ~ Here it is, in the words of Bill Hale that really belong up here as the icing on the cake part of our story: “Humble to announce that Jo and I were inducted into the Texas Senior Softball Hall of Fame this past Friday. We are both really honored to receive this acclaim.”

The thing speaks for itself. ~ Congratulations to Bill and Jo Hale upon their 2019 inductions into the Texas Senior Softball Hall of Fame!

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Bill McCurdy

Principal Writer, Editor, Publisher