Softball is a game for all ages. The players of Kids & Kubs are living proof of that. 


(AP Photo/ Chris O'Meara)

A Florida softball league called Kids & Kubs is eligible to only those 75 years and older, per a feature piece written this week by the Associated Press. Many players are in their 80s, five are in their 90s. The oldest player in the league is 97 years old.

Kids & Kubs, in St. Petersburg, was founded in 1930 and used to draw huge crowds during a time when that area of Florida was known for seniors. Per the AP, some 5,000 gathered in the park's bleachers to watch the games.


"The place was mobbed then," said Winchell Smith, the 97-year-old. "They didn't have anything else to do."

Kids & Kubs has held off the hipsters, gentrification, and have become an 87-year-old tradition. Many of its players are military veterans, including some from World War II. Conversations among them range from arthritis and hospital visits to the tragic passing of loved ones. Two or three teammates die each year, but it is something they have learned to cope with.



More than anything, Kids & Kubs gives the men and women a chance to stay active and healthy. Smith said it's the only thing that keeps him going.

"If I didn't have this, I'd be sitting in a rocking chair ready to die," he said.

Players wear polo shirts and shorts now, rather than dress whites. So not everything has stayed the same since the '30s. But the camaraderie and good feelings remain. Studies have shown that all those things -- from activity to friendship -- can contribute to longevity.

But the Kids & Kubs players didn't have to do any research or become sociologists to know that.



"The challenge of still playing," Wayne Hill, 75, said. "The challenge of going after a ball, throwing a ball, hitting a ball. It's unbelievably great. It's just the thrill of the game. I'm not in it to win or lose, I'm in it to play."

By Marc Raimondi

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