Gosbin helps start Mid-America Senior Softball League

By BLAIR BAUMGARTNER Staff Writer

Rich Gosbin has been involved with softball on and off again since his childhood. Gosbin said, “It started when I was a young kid. It was something to do during recess at Bible school. We traveled with Mennonite churches around the area. I was the youth leader.”

Gosbin was busy working in construction and decided to take a hiatus from softball in his late 20’s. “At about age 30, I picked it up again and became a sponsor through my company. We wound up in a league called All-State Athletic,” he said.

Gosbin took over that league and renamed it The Creative Sign League. He was in the sign business at that time. Eventually the league grew to 18 teams. “We started to have different divisions and played doubleheaders at different parks. This was before the Internet,” said Gosbin.

He said the league contin- ued to grow and acquire new members. “When you’re the commissioner of the league, people come up and talk to you. I was young then. We had 250 people in the league and they expected you to remember all their names,” he said, laughing.

Gosbin said there were multiple medical incidents at that time, which caused them to contact the City of South Bend and eventually get 911 phones at all the old ballparks.

Gosbin has worked hard to recruit new members to the Mid-America Senior Softball League, which will kick off the season Thursday, May 11.

“We have females in our league. Years ago when we ran the other league, we might get six new players. This year we have 22 new players who have not played in any of our leagues. To me, that’s pretty special,” he said. Gosbin mentioned they even have a travel team for 70 year olds who travel and play in other tournaments.