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Annual summer softball game returns to Mt. Riga

Annual summer softball game returns to Mt. Riga

First baseman Ben Fay just couldn’t react quickly enough when faced with the blazing speed of a young competitor, July 6.

Patrick L. Sullivan

SALISBURY — The summer residents of Salisbury’s Mt Riga held the annual July 4 pickup softball game Saturday, July 6.

The field is somewhat tilted, and better suited to horses or goats. The outfield is notoriously bumpy and difficult to traverse.

None of this matters.

Teams were chosen by having the participants line up according to age. The range was early 60s to tyke.

Then the players counted off “One, two, one, two,” and the teams were formed. The Ones took the field and the Twos batted. Or perhaps the other way around.

No balls or strikes are called in this game. However, a batter can strike out. (This is very rare.)

When the youngest players are batting or running, the infielders traditionally drop the ball a lot, forget how to throw it, or trip over their own feet, thus allowing the children to scamper merrily around the bases.

This reporter, a Riga resident, regularly played in this game until about 20 years ago, when he managed to beat out a slow roller for an infield hit, felt something go “pop” in his right knee, and promptly retired.

Patrick L. Sullivan
Senior Reporter
Patrick Sullivan has been a reporter for The Lakeville Journal since 2004, covering everything from town meetings to local characters and the outdoors. He grew up in Northern Virginia but spent summers on Mount Riga in Salisbury, giving him a lifelong connection to the Northwest Corner. A graduate of Denison University, Patrick is also the author of Tangled Lines, the newspapers’ popular fly-fishing column—making The Lakeville Journal, as far as anyone knows, the only newspaper in Connecticut with a regular fly-fishing columnist. He once received a fan letter from England, which he considers sufficient evidence that his work has achieved international acclaim.
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