By Grant Clark
It’s the season opener for the Pints and Quarts Co-Ed Softball League and Mark Rubadue is running late.
The league, which is organized by the Lacey Parks and Recreation Department, runs from late August through the end of September with games being played at the Regional Athletic Complex (RAC).
Rubadue isn’t significantly tardy, but he knows getting there by the end of the first inning is out of the question.
He quickly turns to technology in an attempt to track down a score update. A short text goes out to Sean Finney, the Park and Rec’s Sports/Fitness Recreation Supervisor, asking how his team is faring.
Finney, who is at the RAC watching the game, immediately fires back a reply. It is not the message Rubadue was anticipating.
“All Sean’s text said was, ‘Your team is horrible,’” Rubadue stated.
Looking for a little less vagueness, Rubadue presses for details. Finney’s second text proceeded to give his initial response plenty of weight.
“His second text says we are down 12-0 in the first inning,” Rubadue said with a chuckle. “His first text was pretty accurate, I guess.”
This year marked the first time Rubadue and his team, which includes wife Noel and a group of long-time friends, turned out for co-ed softball.
The team’s core had played soccer together in co-ed rec leagues since the early 1990s when they were all in their early 20s. And they were good.
“They were always one of the top soccer teams,” Finney remembers. “They finished either first or second, it seems, every year they played together.”
Softball, however, is apparently a different type of beast. The team spent the last two decades mastering a sport that does not allow a participant the use of their hands and now find themselves in the middle of something that centers around the simple aspects of throwing a ball and swinging a bat.
“We just thought we would give softball a try this year,” said Rubadue, a health and fitness teacher at Timberline High School. “I think there were only four of us on the team who had played baseball or fastpitch before.”
Rubadue was one of the few who did have a past on the baseball diamond, and it was a successful one.
During his senior year of high school, Rubadue helped North Thurston’s baseball team finish fourth in state in 1990. He went on to play at Centralia College before moving on to the coaching side of the sport, first severing as an assistant with the Rams and later becoming Timberline’s head coach.
Rubadue coached the Blazers from 2004 to 2010 and began his second stint as the team’s coach this past season. The program has enjoyed some of its biggest success under Rubadue’s watch, including a fourth-place finish in state in 2009.
So, directing a group of close friends to a couple of softball triumphs shouldn’t be too tasking. After all, how different can softball be from soccer?
“I think when we showed up with our soccer cheats and bright clothes, people were wondering, ‘Who are these guys?’” Rubadue said. “We’re playing against some teams that take this really serious. They are all decked out in uniforms and have roller bags for their bats. We had to ask around to get a couple extra gloves. We had to borrow some bats.”
The team, saddled with the name Can’t Catch a Cold, lived up to its self-applied handle by finishing the regular season with a record of 0-11-1.
“We were able to get that one tie in,” Rubadue said. “We are celebrating if we made it to the seventh inning because we usually don’t make it out of the fifth. We get 10-runned.”
In addition to Rubadue and his wife, the team consists of Gordon Bragazzi, Shanna Labranch, Carmen Luce, Travis Sugarman, Lance and Shannon Yount, Tony and Kim Doughty, Tory and Sherry Larson and Cory and Jen Redman.
“The funny thing is we are all really pretty athletic,” Rubadue said. “We just can’t play softball together. We are all competitive, but playing is more about being together on a Friday night as a group of friends. I don’t think anyone pays too much attention to the record. I think we would if we weren’t such close friends.”
Lacey Parks and Rec offers a variety of softball leagues throughout the year, featuring a large range of talent levels.
“Active is active,” Rubadue said. “I don’t care what you are doing, as long as you’re being active because if you’re not there will come a time were you wish you had been. This allows a great group of friends the opportunity to be active together. Plus, those of us who have kids, they are out playing at the RAC when we have games. I know with my kids that, if they could, they would sit in front of the computer all day. I think it’s a positive for them to see their parents be active.”
Rubadue doesn’t anticipate the group’s activity level to decrease any. It just may surface next fall in a different pursuit.
“Right after that first game ended, we were all in the dugout and Kim said, “Let’s think about doing bowling next year instead of this,’” Rubadue said. “So, I think we are going to give that a try instead of softball.”
Hey, active is active.
