The Pittsburgh Hardhats softball team played for six seasons between 1977 and 1982 during the short-lived Pro era of men’s slo-pitch softball. The Hardhats competed in the first men’s pro league – the American Professional Slo-Pitch League – and, later, in its the APSPL’s successor league, the United Professional Softball League.
The Syracuse Salts were a brief attempt to field a men’s professional softball team in upstate New York in the summer of 1981. The Salts were comically overmatched in the United Professional Softball League. The club played a 60-game schedule, which consisted of 15 home doubleheaders at Hopkins Road Field In Liverpool, New York and 15 road doubleheaders. The team finished their only season with 4 wins and 52 losses.
The Cincinnati Suds softball team played in various locales in Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky from 1977 until 1982. Slo-Pitch softball had 15 minutes of fame as a pro sport in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s when a group of enthusiasts and speculators attempted to establish a marketplace for men’s softball as a nationwide professional sport. Of the several dozen teams formed during Slo-Pitch softball’s brief pro moment, the Cincinnati Suds were one of only two clubs (along with the Kentucky Bourbons) who played for all six seasons from 1977 to 1982.
Obscure men’s professional Slo-Pitch franchise that operated for four seasons out of New Haven, Connecticut. In 1979, the New England Pilgrims earned a few wire service mentions around the country for signing 39-year old former Detroit Tigers All-Star infielder Dick McAuliffe. Read more…
From 1977 to 1982, men’s slo-pitch softball was a professional sport in the United States. The first pro league was the American Professional Slo-Pitch League (APSPL) which launched with 12 clubs in the summer of 1977. The Louisville-based Kentucky Bourbons were one of the just three franchises to persist through all six seasons of the professional era.
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