Slammin' Bobby Stofft

TOTS Senior Baseball Network

60-and-over baseball

Pull hitters are dangerous.

If a right hander steps to the plate in the Majors, chances are the third baseman on the opposing team is already in position and "ready" to receive a screamer -- a bullet, if you will, and chances are the professional third sacker will glove the ball and make the play, and in the process make it look easy.

For a third baseman on the 60-and-over Tucson Old Timers (TOTS) baseball team, things are a bit different. Chances are the third baseman on the TOTS is 40...or 50...or 60 years older than the pro infielder who we see on television everyday and the reaction time of the "old-timer" at the hot corner...well, to put it mildly, the reaction time, compared to the pro, is not there.

To make matters worse, a batter on the TOTS is using an aluminum bat, for goodness sakes. If a member of the TOTS rips one down the line (the first base line if he's a lefty), well it's simply going to get there in a hurry.

Such is the case with 75-year-old Slammin' Bobby Stofft.

Stofft, a member of the TOTS since 2012, has a habit of pulling the ball. The third baseman may as well prepare himself for what's coming. It's going to be a shot, you can count on it.

In his first year with the TOTS in 2012, Slammin' Bobby Stofft played in just 34 games, a feeling out process for the former Civil Engineer, who hails from Rapid City, South Dakota. Most of his hits in 2012 were down the third baseline as he went 25 for 71 and batted a respectable .321.

The following year, Stofft played in 58 games and it was more of the same. Once again all his hits were down the line, going 45  for 147 and another respectable average of .306.

This year, Stofft has played in just 15 games through March but he's still up to his old tricks as he continues to pull the ball down the line.

"I love to pull the ball," Stofft said, after a recent game in which he "peppered" yet another third baseman.

Stofft say he loves playing with the TOTS and he fully expects to pound the ball down the line well into his late 70s and early 80s.

Bob is widowed. His wife, Mary, passed away in 2001. Bob and Mary raised two children, Jim and Lorraine. Bob smiles when he talks about his two children, Jim is in Tucson and owns the Sabino Veterinary Care Center, while Lorraine is the Director of Public Relations and Marketing at Arizona Western College in Yuma.

Back in the early 1980s, Lorraine was a basketball star at Sabino High School.

A lot of years have passed since Bob sat in the bleachers and watched his daughter and her teammates at Sabino compete for the city title against their arch-rival from crosstown, Canyon del Oro.

Bob played fast pitch softball back then, but he now concentrates on baseball and the next pitch he sees from a TOTS' hurler.

Bob knows where the next pitch is going...and so does the third baseman!

Photo: Slammin' Bobby Stofft

TOTS' Note:  Bob Stofft was born in Minneapolis, MN., but settled in South Dakota and attended and graduated with a Civil Engineering degree from the South Dakota College of the Mines in Rapid City, South Dakota.