Ten years ago, Bayonne, New Jersey, native Mike “Mickey” Bodayle embarked on a journey to write a book about his father, Mike Bodayle Sr., capturing their deep bond rooted in softball, baseball, family, and life in their Northeastern New Jersey town—just a stone’s throw from Staten Island, New York– in the 1960s.
Blogging at the time for Music City Mike and the Pizza Snob–Bodayle took a break from that and went back to work on his book A League of His Own, which came out on October 31st on this year.
“When I took a break from blogging, I said, ‘you know what, I need to finish that book,’ Bodayle recalled. “I just got the passion, and I couldn’t stop. I just started going crazy. It became a lot more that I envisioned, even better.”
Set against the backdrop of a topsy turvy time across America, Bodayle weaves a tale of how softball helped make up the fabric of the working-class town of Bayonne.
“I wrote this book about my dad. He loved baseball and softball,” he said. “Softball in a blue-collar town was a big deal. It sort of has died. But I wanted to talk about softball and how big it was at the time.
“I feel people in Bayonne and Jersey City will really relate to it,” the retired accountant and finance professional added.
Waxing poetically about softball, Bodayle reflected on time when the sport had garnered a ton of fan support from his lunch pail-type of community.
“It was exciting,” Bodayle said. “People who played, we knew their names. We followed them the way we followed the Mets and Yankees. It was softball in the summer, and bowling in the winter. It was a great time.”
His dad loved softball and baseball so much that Bodayle said he established an awesome outlet for softballers, the Industrial League, in which he held multiple positions, including leading the team where he worked, Best Foods Inc., the owners of the Hellman’s brand.
“He was the founder, president, manager, and a great softball pitcher,” he recollected with fond memories. “It started out as a league for fun, which became very competitive.”
His dad succumbed to Alzheimer’s disease at the age of 91, but Bodayle said he could recall stats and baseball memorable moments like nobody’s business, even as the disease progressed. He said his dad’s amazing baseball recall probably had to with him watching baseball and taping games off the radio, including World Series games that he passed along to a famous, late Yankees pitcher.
The now-Franklin, TN., resident said those very tapes are now in the Baseball Hall of Fame.
“My dad had a great baseball radio tape collection,” Bodayle said. At the age of six, “we took his tapes to Whitey Ford, and he asked what he could do for him. My dad said, ‘can you introduce my son to Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris,’ which he did. It was the greatest day of my life.”
Further cementing his dad’s good guy legacy, Bodayle said that he helped a baseball player by the name of Vinny Caravella obtain a tryout with the Mets since he knew a scout for both New York teams.
“He was an amazing player,” he said of the shortstop. “Probably the best player I ever knew.”
As the Industrial League grew in popularity, the elder Bodayle set up a high-profile All-Star game between his team and the Brotherhood League, a squad comprised of elite, upper crust-type of players.
Bodayle senior summoned a guy off the bench to pinch hit for himself–even though he was the better hitter–with the contest hanging in the balance.
“He saw a guy who hadn’t played all game, so he put him into the game,” Bodayle said. “He was that type of guy.”
So, not in my DNA to offer a spoiler alert, to find out what happened in that game and more, purchase the book on Amazon at the Amazon link below.
If you right click on the above Amazon.com blue hyperlink and make a purchase, I might earn some revenue to help support my sports and health/food/entertainment blog.
Thank you for reading my stories and articles. Please stop by again real soon.
— Jerry Del Priore
Photos: Mike Bodayle.
NY NJ Sports World/Brooklyn Sports World 