EVERETT – The halls of great rivalries are decked with the likes of Cougars and Huskies, Hatfields and McCoys, Montagues and Capulets.
After a spirited softball game at Legion Park on Saturday, there’s one more for the books – the Colby Cruisers and the Grand Mother Ruckers.
The teams, made up of residents from Everett’s Northwest Neighborhood, battled it out on the bags and then barbecued as a way to have neighbors meet neighbors.
Greg Rielly, who played center field for the Grand Mother Ruckers, said the first neighborhood softball game achieved that goal. And it didn’t hurt that the Ruckers brought it home by winning the game 10 to 6.
“The rule of winning is to keep from losing, and it’s a concept the Cruisers couldn’t quite grasp,” Rielly said in full bravado. “We just strapped it on and played. We just brought the bacon home.”
More seriously, the game brought together people from up and down the different streets, and even enticed a few neighborhood newcomers, Rielly said.
“This is a very good neighborhood and community here, and its an event that really helps foster that further and bond people together more,” he said.
Rielly and his wife, Devery, had been on the prowl for a way to bring Northwest Neighborhood folks together. On behalf of Grand and Rucker avenue residents, they challenged Colby and Hoyt avenue residents to a softball game, including their friends Paul and Sue Donovan.
And thus a mighty – and mighty sarcastic – competition was born.
“People on Colby and Hoyt were simply going about our everyday business when we were challenged by those people on Grand and Rucker, who have other people to drive their cars and mow their lawns for them,” joked Paul Donovan.
Donovan, a Hoyt Avenue resident, laid it on thick in the days and weeks leading up to the game.
“They called upon the working people with smaller lawns and smaller cars … but when challenged, well, we certainly can rise to this occasion and beat the pants off those fancy-pants rich folks,” he said.
Donovan said the Colby and Hoyt team decided to call themselves the Colby Cruisers. The folks on Grand and Rucker chose the Grand Mother Ruckers.
“We also understand they’re going to have a mascot and uniforms,” he said before the game. “We’ll just wear our regular working clothes.”
Devery Rielly doesn’t quite poke the beehive the same way Donovan does, but she said the two sides had been trading barbs for weeks.
“We’re hoping this will be the start of a lifelong, friendly rivalry,” she said. “We wanted to make the neighborhood come together and get to know more people.”
The game winners received a traveling trophy and bragging rights until next year.
“What’s on the line? Our honor and integrity,” Donovan said. “To suffer through hearing about your loss for an entire year – I think that’s painful enough.”
Though the Cruisers will have to live with that pain, Saturday’s game and barbecue were deemed the first of many more to come.
Rielly, getting in one more jab, said “Yeah, the losers are talking about it for next year.”
Reporter Jennifer Warnick: 425-339-3429 or jwarnick@heraldnet.com.
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