Daily Times, In The Community: Sharon Hill’s hard work landed it in Hall of Fame

By HARRY CHAYKUN, Special to the Times - The Sharon Hill women’s fast-pitch softball team was a model of consistency.


Grantville, PA - From 1977, when the team joined the new Del Val Women’s Fast Pitch League, through 1991, Sharon Hill won 11 league titles and three state championships.

“We practiced every Saturday and Sunday from April through August,” said Mary Quinlan, who retired from playing in 1983 to become the team’s coach.

Saturday night at the Amateur Softball Association (ASA) of Pennsylvania’s 41st anniversary awards dinner, the Sharon Hill Class A women’s team was inducted into the ASA of PA Hall of Fame. Among the three players who also joined the Hall was Nancy Keeley, Sharon Hill’s pitcher through the team’s glory years and one of the founders of the Del Val Women’s Fast Pitch League.

“Everyone knew their ability and their role,” Quinlan, a retired Radnor High teacher and coach, said of the Sharon Hill teams. “We were solid defensively, got key hits, threw in some squeeze bunts and had some luck on our side.

“My local team (Ridley) was filled up and I’ll never forget the first time I walked up to the field at Sharon Hill and players who had been my rivals now were my teammates. In 1983 when I decided to coach it looked like a rebuilding year. My idea was just to have fun.”

That season was the first in which Sharon Hill became state champion. The other titles came in 1984 and 1987. The ’87 team placed seventh in the national tournament, and Theresa Dunbar, who was inducted into the ASA of PA Hall of Fame in 2008, and Vicky Greenwood (Pecunia) were named to the All-America team.

“We learned the meaning of hard work, responsibility and loyalty to the team and to each other,” Quinlan said.

Among the members of the 1983 Sharon Hill team were Keeley, Barb Robinson, Toni McCabe, Donna (Carrero) DeVito, Mickey (Totman) Rowe, Chris Greeley, Pecunia, Dunbar, Barb Miller, Roe Wells, Theresa Pitts and Sheila Bury. Mary Quinlan was the team’s head coach, and Mike Quinlan and Jeanne McCandless were assistant coaches.

McCandless recalled how Keeley contacted some of her teammates from Archbishop Prendergast High when she was helping put together Sharon Hill’s first team in 1977.

“People called people they knew and we had a team,” McCandless said. “We won the first three league championships, and in 1978 we went undefeated. In those days, there were 12 of us, and we called ourselves ‘The Dirty Dozen.’ We owed a lot to (the late) Bob Wiederwax (Sr.) and the people at Sharon Hill A.A.”

Keeley started playing softball by having catches in the yard with her father as a 6-year-old

“He got mad at me one day and said I threw like a girl,” Keeley said. “I told him I was a little girl, and I started crying. But things got better.

“I started out by playing the outfield. By the time I was 12, they put me on the team with the 17- and 18-year-olds.”

n her days in a Sharon Hill uniform, Keeley’s pitching record was 285-78 with a 1.06 earned run average. In 1985, she threw a perfect game in a Del Val League semifinal game and had a 0.93 ERA in the ASA regional qualifier.

For most of her pitching days, Keeley threw to catcher Robinson.

“She was my mentor,” Keeley said of the former Academy Park and Garnet Valley coach who was District One’s softball chairman for a dozen years. “She taught me discipline and perseverance and always told me I should go for it, so I did.

“All the credit for this should go to my teammates. They were so dedicated. There were Friday nights when we might have spent a little too much time at O’Hagan’s, but Saturday morning we dragged ourselves to practice because we knew if we didn’t, we weren’t starting the next game.”

♦

Douglas “Jake” Royal of Coatesville, a member of the Southwest Delaware County (SWDC) Umpires Association, received the J. Richard Millhouse Memorial Award for his years of dedication to the sport of softball as an umpire.

Royal has worked a number of Daily Times Champs ’n’ Charity Classic men’s slow pitch division championship games.

“(ASA of PA Hall of Famer) Sonny Pompilii got me started,” Royal said of the Chester resident and SWDC founder, who has been umpiring for 45 years.

“When I got out of college (Cheyney) I worked at Glen Mills Schools and helped coach football,” Royal said. “We had a (staff) softball team, but we weren’t always happy with the way the games were called. We said someone should become an umpire and learn more about how things should be done, so that’s when I started umpiring.”

Over the years, he worked local leagues in Chester, Marcus Hook and Ridley Township, and these days he calls a lot of games in the leagues in West Chester for which Pompilii assigns the umpires.

“Any time I need an umpire for a charity event, I call Jake,” Pompilii said. “If I have a tough game and need someone strong to work it, I call Jake. Two years ago, when my son’s (a state trooper in Maryland) partner was killed, they wanted to have a softball tournament to raise funds for the family.

“They didn’t have much of an idea about a budget, so my son asked me to get him umpires. I told him it was tough to get guys to do games when they weren’t getting paid, but when Jake heard about it, he said he was in. And that helped us get others who were willing to help.”

Royal just shrugs when asked about all he has done in his more than four decades of umpiring.

“I just wanted to give back something to help those who helped me,” he said. “It’s March now, and I’m getting itchy. I can’t wait for (the 2015) season to get started.”

♦

Brenda Smerigan, long-time commissioner of the Del Val Youth League, received a meritorious service award and Bob “Mopes” Mullaney, who joined the Hall of Fame in 2012, was the recipient of an ASA of PA watch for his years of service to the sport of softball.

The ASA of PA Sports Writing/Media Award went to the Daily Times for the 15th time.