LOOKING BACK

We are a couple of months away from what has become the largest and most successful softball tournament that is currently being held in the state of Kentucky, the Woodbine Rebel Invitational. The success of this tournament is due to the organizational skills and hard work of brothers Jimmy and Bobby Hendrickson and their families’ love of the game.

Unfortunately the game of softball across the state is slowly becoming extinct. Large tournaments from the past such as The Thoroughbred Classic, The Louisville Invitational, and The Lake Cumberland Classic no longer attract the large number of teams that they had in the past.

There used to be as many as 350 teams who were part of the Amateur Softball Association of Kentucky, and around 30 teams who could compete at a high level of play.

My buddy Paul Jones can take you back to the forties, when softball was played competively, but most of those guys like Paul himself preferred baseball. Some of those fellows eventually turned softball like Paul and Ed Clouse and George Crabtree to name a few.

It was in the fifties church teams formed a league and as the game became more and more competitive in the early sixties in Corbin, an Independent League was formed and was under the direction of Gene Leigh, who built a couple of new fields.

When they built the new fields they attracted teams from Williamsburg and Barbourville to play in the Corbin League. There were teams sponsored by Pepsi-Cola, Bondurant Drug, The Drive Inn Prescription Shop, The Bank of Williamsburg and various other sponsors from time to time such as American Greeting Card and Forrest Products.

In the ‘70’s the quality of play really picked up with tournament play each weekend as teams began to travel.

Pepsi-Cola was the class of the mountains as they played in top tournaments in Tennessee, The Carolinas, Georgia, Florida and Alabama, and later played in Las Vegas and Oklahoma.

In the mid ‘70s, there was no class distinction as all teams competed on the same level.

In 1974 Pepsi Cola won the state championship. Southeastern Kentucky had several teams that would challenge for that title at various times in the decade of the ‘70s.

Doc Raders of Pineville was a contender each year, twice winning a state championship as well. Bob Mullens Ford was a strong team from London and New Big Creek, out of Manchester, was yet another contender.

The Woobine Rebels and Forrest Products were very competitive teams that traveled and competed at high level in those years.

In the ‘80s, 90s and 2000s, league play thinned out and tournament play became more prevalent.

The equipment changed with softballs becoming livelier and the advent of thin walled metal bats, the old ballparks with 285 foot to 300-foot fences simply became obsolete.

Teams were classified and home run limits were instituted in an effort to slow down a game that was moving too fast. Your outstanding players were banding together to form teams that could dominate the game.

You now have probably ten teams that far outclass all the others.

The Woodbine Tournament managers Jimmy and Bobby Hendrickson have initiated a one home run limit per game and continue to play on the small fields built in the ‘70s at Miller Park on Barton Mill Road in Corbin.

While softball continues to die a slow death across Kentucky, the Hendrickson family is sure to have at least 36 teams play in what has developed into the state’s best tournament.

This tournament does a great deal to help the economy of Corbin as teams come from all over Kentucky as well as several other states. Motel rooms fill up and local restaurants benefit from the players and their families and friends along with other fans that follow the teams.

This is an event the city needs to get behind and support.