In the Go-Getter Softball League, there is no straightening to time

The interior player Eddie Castorena, 75, bore two hugs under his former spice uniform, one for his knee and one for his back.

The large red recipient Tony Spallino, 67, moved fairly well behind the plate, hoping that he will not need a second replacement of the hip.

His teammate Agustin Quezada, 83, was drinking through the canoe between the sleeves, based on his bat as if it were a cane.

“When I started, it was like, guy, it smells bengay here,” said Big Red Utility Ruben Enriquez.

But there is no glory in the compromise, and no thrill like exploding a bullet in the gap and going around, regardless of the paramedical number that this could bring you home. The matches therefore take place every Thursday at Smith Park in Pico Rivera, home of the Go-Getter Softball League.

“I have never played baseball before. I never learned here, and I love it,” said Isabel Enriquez, 73, who plays several positions for Big Red and made a safe take -up of a left -wing left in a match against force.

The reflexes are generally good and bats still have a little pop, for the most part, especially for players closer 50 than 80. When it comes to running after a ball or sprinter the basic paths, the effort is there, even if the feet cannot always deliver what the heart wants.

“I hope that when I am their age … I will be flexible and I will be able to descend the basic path like that,” said the mayor of Pico Rivera, Johnny Garcia, who stopped to adopt part of the action of a league which is over 30 years.

Lorenzo Sanchez, who launched the Thunder by rolling a 14-2 victory against the Warriors, wore a childish smile and was not like 83. He said that in 15 years of lacing his crampons, he could only recall only one minor muscle traction.

“I am in good condition,” boasted Sanchez.

“I try to emphasize my new players, to go out with the grandchildren, to race and launch the balloon back and forth,” said Rolling Thunder manager Gil Perez, 76. “Some of them do it and some of them do not do so.”

Perez and his wife, Deborah, 71, who play the receiver, train regularly.

“I make boards of 2 and a half years,” said Deborah, referring to the exercise in which you enter a push-up position and keep it as long as you can. “So my heart is quite tight.”

Several players encouraged me to get out of the press and on the field.

I would love, I say. But I had two knee replacements.

This attracted a clear answer and in a word of Dichosa “Dee” Quezada, Agustin’s wife and a faithful spectator who watches each match from a lawn chair behind the net.

“SO?” She asked with a withered look.

A match in the Go-Getter League.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

I would not be the first, told me Dichosa, saying that there was a guy with two knee replacements in a team from Anaheim.

Over the past years, an old Go-Getter used a walker to go to the field, swung an average bat and left a twinge runner after hitting a blow.

And then there is Spallino, with the replacement of the hip, who told me that he had tried to come back too early after his surgery of 2017. A little more rest did the trick and that the hip still holds, Spallino said: “But I have problems with the other now.”

The players have a feeling of reassurance knowing that the former softballer Lupe Diaz, a retired nurse, comes to all the games with her first aid kit. Once upon a time ago, there were not enough tools in this kit for several years.

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1 and 1 Rolling Thunder’s launcher Lorenzo Sanchez, 83, looks at the ball in the ball while hitting in a Senior Softball League match colleague from Pico Rivera in Smith Field. (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times) 2 Deborah Perez, Rolling Thunder Catcher, sets behind the plate at the Senior Co-Ed Softball League of Pico Rivera at Smith Field. (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

“I remember that it was yesterday,” said Diaz. “I was a receiver and I was preparing to reject the ball when I saw this player lying on the ground in the outside field.”

Diaz ran and started the RCR on the fallen field player, whose heart had given, while someone called 911.

“I brought him back and they brought him safe,” she said.

The player recovered in the hospital but died about two weeks later, as Diaz remembers.

Thursday, the large red voltiger Art Montano, 77, swung on a field and missed. He ended up hammering a simple pointed to the right, but he was always frustrated by the previous smell.

“My vision is not as it was,” said Montano, and sometimes the brain does not react quickly to the messages sent by the eyes. “Let’s say that the ball is launched, and you are waiting on it, and the brain tells you that it is there, but you cannot press the relaxation.”

The great red launcher Agustin Quezada, 83, faces strength to Smith Park.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

In the Rolling Thunder of Warriors rout, Uvaldo Davila voltiseur showed a smooth glove and a strong arm, and after hitting a blow, he climbed around the bases to score. But back in the canoe, he said that he had struggled against a great challenge.

“I was diagnosed with Parkinson about eight years ago,” said Davila, 64, who told me that her hand tremors were getting worse, and his neurologist told him that he could soon have balance problems.

“I take medication,” said Davila, and he intends to continue playing as long as he can, because softball is “better than medicine”.

The strength, the strongest team of this season, did not show any mercy on Thursday, buying Big Red by a score of 21-1 to improve at 8-0.

“We have a lot of good strikers and no drama,” said the companion of Force Lee Wabash, 75. “In the past, there were a lot of arguments. But this team has it together.”

At one point, with anyone on the basis, a strength striker struck a routine group. Big Red’s second base player traveled it cleanly, but launched second in the place first.

“Senior moment”, mounted a great red teammate disappointed in the canoe.

In sixth round, several great red players noticed that their launcher had disappeared. They looked around and spotted him in the parking lot, pedaling on his bike.

“Meule!” A player called in vain.

“He returns home,” said another.

Agustin Quezada often uses her bat like a cane. At 83, he launches and plays in the inner field in the Go-Getter League.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

But two games remain in the regular season, so it’s still time to find a groove. And then the six teams qualify for the playoffs.

Anything can happen, said Ruben Enriquez, and running simply to exercise and being with friends is a victory in itself.

“Better to play,” he said, “than rotting at home.”

Steve.lopez@latimes.com

Steve Lopez

Steve Lopez is from California who has been a columnist for Los Angeles Times since 2001. He has won more than a dozen national journalism awards and is a quadruple finalist in Pulitzer.