SOUTH BEND, IND  – Frank DeGroat, catcher for the Patsy’s men’s fast pitch softball team of New York City,  drove in six runs in the team’s opening game in the ASA Men’s Fast Pitch National Championship at the Belleville Softball Complex on Thursday. Seventeen teams are competed in the double-elimination event, which is being held here for the third time in four years.

Although DeGroat’s RBI total wasn’t a  single-game record, it was the sixth time a player has driven in that many runs in a men’s Major fast pitch national tournament game. DeGroat joins Joe Morecraft, Baltimore, MD (1953), Randy Brown, Atlanta, GA (1983), Mike Gomez, St. Paul, MN (1992), Kerry Shaw, St. Joesph, MO and Chris Delarwelle, Denmark, WI (2003),

Three players are ahead of DeGroat and the others. They are Bob McLish of Springfield, MO (1973), who drove in seven runs, and Brett Alvey amd Mitch Munthe of Larry Miller Toyota, Salt Lake City, Utah, who share the single-game record of eight in 1997. Seven of Munthe’s RBI came in one inning and is the one-inning record.

Shawn Rychcik, former standout for Decatur Pride, Decatur, Ill., holds the ASA record for total RBIs in a national championship with 14 in 1999. McClish had 13 RBIs in 1973 as did DeLarwelle in 2003.

                                                   

 

 

If Patsy’s men’s fast pitch softball team of New York City is to win the ASA Men’s Major Fast Pitch National Championship, which is being held at the Belleville Complex, then its catcher, Frank DeGroat, must hit home runs and drive in runs.


Bill Plummer
bplummer@softball.org