The "Golden Boys" are amazin'...

At 65 years of age and into my third year as a member of the Tucson Old Timers Baseball Club (TOTS), I tend to overlook the difference in ages from say our young studs, who range in age from sixty to seventy and our "Golden Boys", who have reached that eighty-plus plateau.

The TOTS have close to 50 members and more are being added every few months as baseball players who are just turning sixty in 2010 and 2011 are signing up to play ball with "The Boys at Udall Park".

 When you play with these guys three times a week, you tend to worry more about the out at first base or that fly out to center field. How old the guy is with the glove on, just doesn't seem to matter at that particular moment in time. But the TOTS have five eighty-plus players who play regularly and they amaze their teammates and the onlookers in the stands, every time they take the field.

Take Floyd Lance, for example, a member of the TOTS since 1999. Floyd turns 85 today. He batted .556 the month of August and can still get the job done at first base. Floyd platoons at first base with 81-year old Brad Tolson. Brad, who pitched for the University of Arizona, back in the early 1950s, batted a cool .583 in the month of August. He drove in four runs and even added a couple of deep sacrifice flies to the mix. The other "Golden Boys" are 81-year-old Billy Heiny, 83-year-old Jack Glickman and 90-year-old (yes 90!) Clarence Fieber. Now, these fellows are what the TOTS are all about. All three belong on a poster somewhere, advertising our club, The TOTS, the world's oldest baseball team.

Doc Heiny, as we like to call him (he's a retired dentist), catches, pitches, plays infield and the outfield. He never misses a game. Sometimes we call him "Wheels" because he can certainly scamper around the bases. He batted .143 for the month of August and walked five times. Jack, on the other hand, played every game last month. He batted 20 times, got one hit, walked four times and knocked in a run. Sure, he's no speedster on the base paths, but that's not the point, he's there, participating in every game. He loves it. And then there's Clarence. The oldest ball player I know. At 90, Clarence is the oldest player to ever don a TOTS uniform. Sure, he's not a stats leader on the club. But, once again, that's not the point. The man is fit, and I for one, just hate to throw him out at first base. Clarence went 2 for 22 in August. He walked three times, knocked in a run and scored twice. He still hates to have someone run for him.

And now you know why I'm a member of the "best" baseball club in the world.