SSUSA TO SUPPORT FIRST SENIOR LEAGUE IN SOUTH AMERICA

April 1, 2020

L-R: Tulio Ontiveros and Jim Goff

SACRAMENTO - Could senior slow pitch softball gain a foothold on the continent of South America?  SSUSA is involved in a first effort to find out.

“Slow pitch softball is played in a few places in the northern parts of Latin America, such as Mexico, Panama, Puerto Rico and even Cuba,” says SSUSA CEO Terry Hennessy. “However, to my knowledge, only fast pitch and modified semi-fast pitch are mostly played in the Caribbean and South America.”

SSUSA’s first permanent foray into Latin America was the inaugural Caribbean Classic Recreational Tournament, played this past January in the paradisiacal city of Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic.  Now that tournament has led directly to the idea of establishing what would be the first-ever senior slow pitch league in South America, in Caracas, Venezuela.

“The 2020 Caribbean Classic players all hailed from the USA and Dominican Republic,” explained tournament co-director Jim Goff, “with one exception: my new Venezuelan friend and co-director Tulio Ontiveros.”

“A few weeks after our tournament,” Goff continued, “Tulio contacted me from Caracas with the idea of starting up a senior slow pitch league there in his home city.”

“I really enjoyed working with Jim on the first Caribbean Classic,” Ontiveros remarked, “And I learned two new things.  The first was that playing slow pitch is a lot of fun!  And the second thing that was new to me was the idea of putting together a team consisting of players from all over the country to play in international tours and tournaments.  SSUSA has been doing this for many years,” he continued, “but in Latin America this is a new concept.”

Ontiveros says he realized that he needed a slow pitch league in order to supply players and form a “Team Venezuela” for the Caribbean Classic and other international tournaments.  He reports that he plans to play a 13-week schedule, “And then I will challenge the players to test their new slow pitch skills against the Americans, Canadians, and Dominicans in the next Caribbean Classic”.

“I am starting to promote this new Caracas Senior Slow Pitch League now,” Ontiveros reports, “so that hopefully soon after the pandemic stay-at-home restrictions are lifted here in Venezuela, we can begin playing and complete our first season during 2020.”

One of the ways that SSUSA is supporting this new league is by providing the structure of SSUSA’s fully developed slow pitch rules.

Last year, in preparation for the inaugural Caribbean Classic, Goff and Ontiveros had worked together to produce a Spanish-language version of the main rule differences between SSUSA slow pitch and the semi-fast pitch game familiar to Latin American players.

“I copied and pasted right out of the official SSUSA Rule Book,” Goff explained, “and then Tulio did the translation.  We even included the three pages of official dimensions from the SSUSA book.”

“And we were able to find some private sponsorship for the league, at least for its first year, which will make it possible for Tulio to offer the league free of charge to all teams and players,” Goff added.  “That will provide a little extra enticement for these Venezuelan senior players to give slow pitch a try.”

“We’re optimistic that there’s a niche for senior slow pitch in South America,” concluded Hennessy. “Perhaps when their fast and semi-fast pitch careers are winding down, the more senior players can switch to slow pitch as their game of choice, instead of giving up softball completely, which tends to be the pattern down there today.”

The second annual SSUSA Caribbean Classic tournament and all-inclusive vacation will be held once again in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic.  The dates are February 17-22, 2021.

For anyone who may have senior-age ballplaying family or friends in Caracas, Tulio Ontiveros can be reached via email at info@softballclassics.com and teamturismo1@gmail.com, via text message under team.turismo on WhatsApp, or via his @softballclassics Instagram account.