PHILADELPHIA — Manny London isn’t playing as much softball as he once did. There was a time when he was a member of three different leagues — one in Montgomery County, one in Bucks County, one that had him traveling on weekends to tournaments as far away as Las Vegas and Utah. The double knee replacement he had in 2012 slowed him some, sure, and left him with scars and slashes across his legs, like an angry mountain lion got to him. But he’d pitch at least two games a week even as recently as last year, when he was just 90.
Time always wins, though. London turned 91 in April, and it’s a little harder for him to move around than it used to be. “I came up with a couple of ailments,” he said, and his physical-therapy sessions can treat only so many and only so much. He could still pass for 71 — white beard trimmed perfectly, sky blue uniform tucked in tight like a pro. But when the Montgomery County Senior Softball League has its games here at the aptly named Old School Park in Hatfield, its eldest player does what he did Monday morning. He manages. He cheers. He fills in at catcher when he can. He even gave up his responsibilities as the league’s social chairman after 13 years. No more picnics and holiday parties to plan. It’s enough to be at the games and leave the playing to the younger, sprier guys, like 77-year-old shortstop Ken Mayer, who went hard to his right to field a sharp grounder on one hop, then tossed the ball to 80-year-old second baseman Mark Norton for a force out.
Those moments, like a 7-iron two feet from the pin in an otherwise frustrating round, keep the league’s 13 teams and 184 players, all of them 60 or older, coming back every morning, Monday through Thursday, from mid-April until early October. Like London, they have their ailments and their ointments and their appointments that they have to reschedule because they wouldn’t dare miss a game, because maintaining the league, its traditions, and the friendships it has fostered means so much to them.
