A summer of focus on the local military presence extended to a first-year baseball league.
The Chattanooga-area United States Adult Baseball League began primarily as a cheap way for a bunch of guys to keep playing the diamond sport they love, but the commissioner, Billy Massingale, is retired from the U.S. Army and came up with a way for other military veterans to play even cheaper.
"After we started putting this league together, I talked to a friend I served with in Iraq, and he was having trouble adjusting to civilian life. He really needed something," said Massingale, who's 47 and had multiple deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan in his 20-plus years of active duty. "I went through some of that, too, and baseball is still something I love and I thought it would help him, so I got the idea to raise some money from guys in the league to help him play."
When that worked out, Massingale said, "I thought if I could raise money for this guy, we can do that for other veterans, too."
According to Jeremiah Dills, player-coach for the Charleston MoJo, the wood bat league "specifically caters to veterans by offering them a chance to play for free or at reduced costs. We as a league brought out 17 veterans this year and are looking to increase that number for 2016. We have veterans that drive from as far away as Atlanta and Nashville to play."
The league included five teams in 2015 and already has a Hixson-based team lined up to join next year. Massingale's Cleveland Bulls won the regular season and the MoJo were runners-up after each team finished 16-4, and the Chattanooga Nationals won the double-elimination postseason tournament. The other teams were based in East Ridge and Rhea County.
Sunday doubleheaders were held at area high school fields, and the East Ridge recreation department helped out by making Camp Jordan Park available for the first couple of weeks and for the postseason tournament.
The league had a home run derby competition with Trey Silmon winning, Eric Ezerskey finishing second and Ryan Bruce finishing third.
The Bulls' Greg Rummel of Chattanooga, a 62-year-old outfielder who served in Vietnam, was honored as the league's veteran of the year.
"No one had more fun than Greg," Dills said. "He was like a kid in a little league game," Massingale echoed.
Rummel wasn't the oldest player in the league, however. That distinction belonged to Chattanooga city councilman Larry Grohn, 67, who pitched and played first base some for the East Ridge Lookouts.
Many of the league's players are current or recent college players, Massingale noted.
"I'd say the average age is mid to late 20s," he said. "Probably 90 percent of us played high school baseball, and probably 40 to 50 percent played in college."
Massingale played at Lakeview-Fort Oglethorpe High and never quit loving the game. This summer gave him a chance to enjoy it in a new way.
"I never pitched in school ball or when I played in the Army," he said. "But one game this year I had a no-hitter through four innings. Then there were some errors and I got roughed up in the fifth."
Retiring from the Army in 2012, Massingale was on a church softball team that became a baseball team. But baseball league fees were a lot more than those for softball - exorbitantly high, he and others felt - and communication was lacking in the case of postponements. It made for a frustrating experience.
Another league being formed for this year seemed promising, but a potential group of 10-12 teams shrank almost in half by March and the organizer didn't like the resulting cost analysis. So in the face of a folding league, Massingale stepped in and offered to run one "that would let us have fun playing baseball and do it as cheap as possible."
Contact Ron Bush at rbush@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6291.