Hall of Fame
Doug Houston
Inducted July 2024
Doug Houston, a Vietnam veteran who served as commissioner of our league from 2017 to 2023, took charge of the league when membership was falling. We could barely find enough players for eight teams. Doug applied his organizational skills and enthusiasm. As a relentless softball evangelist, he recruited players from all over the metro area, dragging them out of bars, opium dens, half-way houses, Odd Fellows temples and pool halls. Soon we had more than enough players for a dozen teams. Doug was durable. He survived 10,000 emotional phone calls with Dave Tadich. He heard every joke Ed Rostek knows, 10 times. He endured 86 revisions of the pinch-running rule. He even attempted to explain the pinch-running rule. And he was consistent. He always wanted the game to be fair, and he never swung at the first pitch.
Ken Meyer
Inducted September 2024
Ken Meyer joined the league in 2006 and has served as a manager for the past 14 years. He dubbed his team the Green Machine. Ken also takes on the immense annual chore of registering players and making sure the league gets paid. He serves as an umpire. And he designed and built the wooden home plates we use to tell whether pitches are balls or strikes. If not for Ken, we would not know that thunking sound of a yellow ball landing on the painted plywood. Ken grew up in Homewood and Wilkinsburg, served in the U.S. Air Force in Germany and spent his career as a mechanical engineer specialized in hydraulics and the design of transmissions.