50 years ago, Bob Currier coached his daughter, Pattie, in the first season of the Beverly Girls Softball League
When Pattie (Currier) Saltzman was 11 years old, she’d swing by Vittori Park to practice with the Orioles of Beverly Little League. When it came time for the games, however, all she could do was watch.
“It was frowned upon that, heaven forbid, the girls play,” Saltzman said.
That all changed the next year, in 1975, when the Beverly Girls Softball League was formed by the Beverly Recreation Department. Saltzman suited up for the Red Sox in that inaugural year, with her father, Bob Currier, serving as her coach and her mother, Ginny, keeping score.
Fifty years later, Bob Currier, now 96, will have the honor of throwing out the ceremonial first pitch when the Beverly Girls Softball League marks its 50th anniversary on Sunday at 10 a.m. at the Beverly High School softball field.
The honor will be a great full-circle moment for father and daughter (Ginny passed away in 2016). I stopped by their home on Sonning Road this week to talk about those early days of the league and what it meant to them and to other girls in Beverly who finally had, yes, a league of their own….. CONTINUE READING “Founding father — and daughter”
Paul Leighton has been covering all things Beverly for a long time–not 400 years, but 40! The retired former Beverly Times/Salem News reporter, now offers Beverly news like the sad story below about a World War I veteran from Beverly in The Beverly Beat. Check out more Beverly stories on Substack.