Remembering the APSPL

The Athletes Unlimited Softball League is winding down its inaugural season this weekend, with the Bandits taking on the Talons in a best-of-three championship series in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

While the four AUSL teams (the Blaze and Volts are the other two) competed in a touring format this year, the league will move to a city-based model in 2026 and expand to six clubs.

By all indications, the women’s professional game is trending in the right direction.

Think of men’s softball, however, and you might envision teams stocked with big-gutted sluggers who are less concerned with the game’s final out than the outing for beer and pizza that comes afterwards.

Yet, there was a time when such weekend warriors played for pay, beginning with the American Professional Slo-Pitch League.

The APSPL was the brainchild of Bill Byrne, founder of the National Scouting Association. The NSA was designed to help match college athletes with pro teams, and after a stint in the World Football League (the 1974 Chicago Fire and 1975 Shreveport Steamer), he turned his attention to softball in 1976.

That year – in May – Byrne announced the formation of the APSPL, which would use a 12-inch ball and begin play on 1977 with four divisions. In mid-June Byrne revealed that the first four franchises would be located in Cleveland, Louisville, Pittsburgh and Washington, D.C., and he was looking to start play with 16 franchises.

In a news release distributed to various outlets, Byrne said that the season would run from June to September with teams playing one game during the week and up to two on weekends. The season, consisting of 56 games, would conclude with a $100,000 championship series.

“The franchise fee is $25,000,” Byrne said. “In order for our standards to remain high, all franchises must have a park with sufficient lighting for color television, softball diamond of the highest quality, plenty of parking, and ample seating capacity. We are taking the year 1976 for organizational purposes and the establishment of a merchandising division, property rights and license division, film division, television division, marketing division, publicity division and a director of player operations.”

APSPL staff member Tim Koelble said that the time was right for men’s pro softball.

“This is a sport that’s never been tapped at this level,” Koelble said in a United Press International interview in November, 1976. “Surveys show that 26 million people play slo-pitch softball in America. That includes things like church leagues. We figure we can even make it just by drawing crowds from the people who play the game now.”

By August, Byrne’s plans had been scaled back.

“There are 15 or 20 groups we are working with,” Byrne told Associated Press. “When we see they are financially stable and have a suitable playing site available, then we’ll make some decisions. I’d like to have eight to 10 teams the first year – solid franchises like the four we have now.”

Unlike many upstarts, this one actually got off the ground.

The inaugural season featured 12 teams: the Baltimore Monuments, Chicago Storm, Cincinnati Suds, Cleveland Jaybirds, Columbus All-Americans, Detroit Caesars, Kentucky Bourbons, Milwaukee Copper Hearth, Minnesota Goofy’s, New York Clippers, Pittsburgh Hardhats and Trenton Statesmen.

There were a few occasions where the product seemed more like a home run derby; Minnesota and Detroit combined for 78-runs in one contest, and a four-game series between Chicago and Detroit produced 189 runs.

But as the season wore on the games became more competitive. All things considered, year one was a success.

The Caesars claimed the inaugural championship, sweeping Baltimore in four games. The winners featured former Detroit Tigers standouts Norm Cash and Jim Northrup, and several former Major League Baseball players participated in the league.

Chicago’s Benny “The Thumper” Holt led the APSPL in home runs with 89 (he is in the Chicago Softball Hall of Fame).

On July 20, 1977, baseball legend Whitey Ford was named the APSPL’s first commissioner, which gave the circuit some additional positive publicity.

“To say I’m enthusiastic about this new job is a gross understatement,” Ford said in an AP story. “Slo-pitch is going to fill avoid we have long had in our calendar of professional sports.”

And once the season was completed, former New York Yankees All-Star Joe Pepitone decided to switch sports and sign a two-year contract with the Statesmen.

In 1979 the league became a part of television history when – on September 7 – the game between the Milwaukee Schlitz (the club rebranded from Copper Hearth in 1978) and Kentucky Bourbons was the first live event ever televised by ESPN.

The APSPL had a two-year contract with the network.

But, as is the case with many such niche leagues, the APSPL came with an expiration date. It completed four seasons and in 1981 merged with the North American Slo-Pitch League to form the United Professional Softball League, which lasted through the 1982 campaign.

But the novelty was wearing off, teams came and went, and in the summer of 1983 that league quietly folded. Thus, the era of pro men’s slo-pitch came to an end.

No doubt slo-pitch is fun to play, and sometimes fun to watch. Still, the women’s fast-pitch version has helped transform the game into a “major” sport, with college softball a major draw and professional competition taking off.

It’s fun to think back on the days of the high-scoring APSPL – gotta love those 78-run contests – but high-level softball has evolved. And thanks to female athletes, its best days are still ahead.