SC woman prepares for softball reunion

Dixie Lee Turley expects to share some laughs and some tears on Friday.

That’s just the way it goes when the Sun City woman gets together with her friends and former teammates from the heyday of Arizona women’s fast-pitch softball.

The women represent a league of their own and their annual reunion in El Zaribah Temple in Phoenix will feature the best players from a bygone era.

"We used to get big crowds," said Turley, a Phoenix native who moved to Sun City nine years ago. "Nobody had TVs, then, so they came out to the ballpark."

Turley’s father introduced her to softball as a child, taking her in 1947 to see the famed PBSW Ramblers at a Phoenix ballpark at 17th Avenue and Roosevelt.

PBSW was an office-supply store in the Valley and sponsored the Ramblers, a powerhouse softball team that won national titles in 1948 and 1949 and finished as a runner-up in 1950.

One of the team’s players was Virginia Dobson, who later became Turley’s sixth-grade teacher.

Dobson quickly spotted Turley’s softball talents and invited her as an eighth-grader to join the Ramblers in 1950.

Turley apprenticed with the Dudettes, the Ramblers’ top farm team, before being promoted to the big club.

"I was small and fast," said Turley, who pitched and played shortstop.

To emphazize her point about her diminutive size, Turley pulled out a pair of uniform shorts from her days with the Ramblers.

"These are 28-inch pants and I had to take them in," the 72-year-old Sun Citian said while holding the red shorts trimmed with yellow stripes. "I wish I could fit in these now."

Softball consumed Turley’s life.

She learned how to pitch in her family’s back yard at 40th Avenue and Van Buren.

Turley’s father owned a box company. To refine her game, Turley threw thousands of pitches at old lettuce crates tied to a tree.

"I had a windmill delivery and a good fastball," Turley recalled. "But my main pitch was a drop that would just catch the corner of the plate."

Turley played three or four nights a week. On weekends, there would be multiple games, with practice on Sunday.

Because of the late nights and demanding schedule, Turley’s parents forced her to quit the team.

"I understood the decision," Turley recalled. "A lot of times I wouldn’t have rides home and I’d have to walk home in the dark."

Turley began playing tennis, but never strayed too far from softball.

By 1955, she had gotten married and proceeded to have four children in 4½ years. She began coaching softball in a church league and playing in a city league.

"I’d bring the kids to the games," Turley recalled. "They’d be climbing the monkey bars and I’d be out on the field with a dugout full of baby-sitters."

Turley also displayed her fiery competitive spirit, getting banned from the city league after a basepath fracas.

"I slid safely into third base," Turley recalled of the play which put a premature end to her city-league career. "The third baseman caught the ball, then stepped on me and spiked me on purpose. I bounced up ready to fight.

"Eventually, they pulled me off of her. They kicked both of us out the league."

Turley quickly phoned the Ramblers, who welcomed her back to the fold. She spent several more years with the famed team before her husband’s job forced the family to move to Georgia and California.

Turley has saved her uniforms, trophies and newspaper clippings from her softball glory days.

As she has taken inventory of her life, she has decided to donate many of the items to the Arizona Softball Hall of Fame in Prescott.

"I want to make sure everyone knows I am not a Hall of Famer," she said. "But my kids don’t have room for all of my things, so I thought it would be great to give it to the Hall of Fame."

Turley never expressed disappointment over failing to gain induction into the softball hall.

She lost many prime softball years when her parents forced her to quit the game in high school. Later, she never established herself on one particular team, playing for city and church teams as well as the Ramblers.

Like life itself, softball has brought Turley joy and disappointment. She’ll share both of those with her friends and teammates this week.