Cam Rusch Remembers 70 Years of Softball

Sept. 1, 2013

When it comes to playing the game of softball, few if any can match Cam Rusch’s records.

Rusch was introduced to the game back in 1958 and played for the next seven decades until his health made him retire in 2010. Adding it all up, Rusch figures he played 3,000 softball games.

“Growing up all recreational softball was played without gloves back in Harvey, N.D.,” he recalled. “ At that time fastpitch was the game and the teams with the best pitching dominated. Later, slow pitch came into our area and liking softball as much as I did, I played slowpitch on Monday and Wednesday and fastpitch on Tuesday and Thursday along with tournaments on weekends.”

He eventually moved on to Fargo, N.D., where there were many leagues and opportunities to play softball. He notes that he was fortunate enough to be on fastpitch Class B team that won the state title.

He gave up fastpitch for slowpitch which gave him the opportunity to play more games and a tournament somewhere just about every weekend. His longest day in softball was an eight-team round-robin tournament in which he played seven games one day.

Rusch says the biggest change in slowpitch came with the metal bats and the restricted softball as well as the change in the pitching distance.

He was elected to the North Dakota State Board of Directors for softball.

Rusch says that winning the state tournament with his two sons on the team was a softball fulfillment before leaving Fargo for Arizona where he started playing senior softball. His special memory there was pitching 10 games and batting .700 in winning a national tournament in Texas.