Many young adults find it difficult to re-engage (or even initially engage) with the Catholic Church by walking through the doors for Sunday Mass. Taking that first step is unfamiliar, daunting, and solitary. Many young adults report not wanting to go to Mass simply because they don’t have someone to sit with when they arrive. For many cradle Catholics, this phenomenon is not on their radar because of their own comfort level with the church.
Young adults find strength in numbers. Many find their way into the church through personal friends or family who help walk them into these initial stages of engagement with the church. For young adults living in a new city, especially, as well as young adults who feel isolated since leaving the familiar environs of high school or college, the church has an opportunity to engage them in activities. These activities can help them to make some new friends, have fun, and gently invite them back to Mass and active participation as a parishioner in a Catholic parish.
One way that the young adult ministry office in the diocese of Cleveland accomplished this was through a summer softball league. The director of young adult ministry solicited young adults to serve as coaches and recruiters from 12 parishes throughout the diocese. They, in turn, began by soliciting young adults to play in the league through their various group chats, social media channels, and other forms of advertising. The Diocese additionally ran ads in bulletins and other social media channels. Over 180 young adults signed up to play through the diocesan website. Players either selected a team or were assigned a team if they were unfamiliar with the coaches and the area. Each team had roughly between 14-20 players. You want to add extra players to a roster to guard against work and vacation schedules throughout the summer. Teams needed at least 8 players to show up to field a team, but obviously, that is not optimal. We charged each player $35 to play in the league. In our second year, we raised that price to $40. We have considered charging a team fee and having the team manager be responsible for gathering the money from his players.
Where to Play and Basic Rules
You’ll need to decide some basic factors in developing your league. We decided that the league would be co-ed, would value fun over competition (but would still be somewhat competitive), and we could play a 7 or 8 game schedule plus a round of playoffs. Each team also had a “bye week.” We found a parish that had a softball field and worked with their maintenance staff to set base lengths and the pitching mound. They charged us $50/per game, and we played 4-5 games every Sunday afternoon. One young adult was an umpire at the high school level and was very adept at helping us draw up basic league regulations based on A.S.A. (American Softball Association) slo-pitch rules. Additionally, we added rules of our own. Each player would start with one ball and one strike count. We marked the plate with a welcome mat for a wider strike zone. We prohibited sliding (85% of rec league softball injuries are the result of people sliding who don’t know how to slide. Don’t believe us? We had one major injury in the league our first year. A young man dislocated his shoulder by sliding illegally and fell onto his shoulder at home plate.) Each game was kept 7 innings long.
Equipment, Uniforms and Umpires
Every team got an equipment bag filled with 2 regulation bats, a dozen softballs, and prayer cards. We ordered uniforms after soliciting designs from the coaches and found a great partner who made our uniforms cheaply in exchange for putting his logo on the back of the jersey above the player’s number. We found a different hat company that gave us a nice pro-style hat with the team’s logo on it. Players were required to bring their own gloves and we made efforts to find extra gloves for players who didn’t have them and had a financial burden.
Lastly, we named the young adult ministry director and another young adult umpires for the league. In a few rare cases, we hired a professional umpire and paid him for the day out of league fees. We bought the basic equipment we thought we would need. Besides the content of the bags, we purchased bases, a large supply of softballs, scorebooks for every team and an official scorer’s book. We added a bunch of catcher’s masks for the pitcher and catcher for safety purposes. We initially bought a net for the pitcher to hide behind. You may wish to consider this, but we found it unnecessary.
Costs Involved
The young adult ministry office added $2000 to their annual budget to give the league some seed money. League fees brought in $6000-8000 each year to cover equipment, the field fees, uniforms and hats, umpire fees, and other incidentals. We added a lunch for the umpires and encouraged teams to gather socially after each game, and we provided some snacks, beer, soda. A local medical team sponsored our playoffs and cooked hot dogs, chicken, and hamburgers on a grill in exchange for signage and other advertising opportunities. The league actually made money the first two years which we rolled into the following year’s budget. If the budget money is lacking, one could solicit some funds from sponsors in exchange for field signage or uniform space.
Results
We surveyed the group and found a number of interesting results. The league itself had very few problems. Our commissioner and umpires were fair but firm, people had fun and got closer with members of their team. The biggest result was that for those who were not involved in parish life at all (about 1/5 of the league), 50% of those people were doing something new by the end of the year. They went to Mass more often, got involved in a ministry in the parish, started a new prayer practice, or joined a young adult group. Some of the remainder were not Catholic. A few decided to marry in the Catholic Church, and a few more joined an OCIA group. Many novice players learned from others on how to play better, and it helped a few with their overall self-esteem. Generally, the group really enjoyed themselves, and the league is now a hallmark of the young adult office.
Issues to Handle
We had very few issues and only a few mild injuries – balls striking a fielder, a dislocated shoulder, one player dove for a ball and cut his forehead open and required a few stitches. We kept a first aid kit and ice on site. One player’s mother was a physician, and she attended many games and gave us some great medical advice from time to time. A guy accidentally ran over a female player, and she got a mild concussion. Some novice players needed to be told where to stand so they didn’t get run over by a runner, and many novice players needed a lot of coaching in the early days. Rescheduling games that were rained out was an absolute nightmare, ranging from finding an available field to finding an agreeable time on a weekday night for players and umpires. Groundskeeping was also problematic at times. We actually bought a rake and often ran to hardware stores to buy bags of drying agent on days when the rain hit the field the day before but game day was a sunny day. We had a few arguments with umpires, but generally speaking, most of those issues were mild disagreements. One coach was way too competitive, and we addressed that in a coaches meeting.
Was It Worth It?
Even with all the issues that resulted, it was well worth it. The young adult community is much more connected because of the league. We need to take better care of encouraging cross-team hospitality. After the game, many teams would find their way to a local establishment or an ice cream parlor, but they often did not invite their opponents. New people reported getting to know their own team well, but not many others at times. But this investment paid off in a big way. Young adults were evangelized and others got to deepen their faith with newfound friends and acquaintances. Over time, more people began to use the parish’s adoration chapel before and after Mass, and a few teams began to serve together in a variety of local service opportunities. Evangelization often begins with friendship. As a Deacon in the church, I find my job is often to help people make friends. The softball league was a blessing in that department. Thanks be to God!
