By Dave Dyer

Staff Writer

The couple that loves softball together stays together.

Scarborough resident Bill Nickerson will play in the National Senior Games, which will be held in San Francisco, Calif. Aug. 1 through Aug. 15. The event is billed as the largest multi-sport event in the world for athletes 50 years of age and older. Eighty-three Maine athletes will take the trip, including Nickerson and the rest of his softball team, which comes from the Greater Portland Senior Men’s Softball League, a competitive league with game locations held in both Portland and South Portland.

Nickerson will also be accompanied to games with his wife Shelley, who will also be with the team, serving as a scorer.

Bill Nickerson said he first heard of the National Senior Games more than 10 years ago, after learning from Maine Amateur Softball Association Commissioner Bill Keary that Juanita Chandler, the Maine Senior Games Commissioner, was trying to have a state senior softball team tournament. Nickerson said a team has to win at the Maine Senior Games tournament to qualify for the National Senior Games.

“There are still five guys on the roster [from the original team],” he said. “We play once every other year. Last year was the qualifying year and we ended up winning.”

Bill Nickerson said to his surprise, most of the players from the team wanted to come out to California for the Senior National Games, as he was concerned most of the team would have other plans or could not afford the trip.

Nickerson is no stranger to the Senior National Games, as this will be his fourth trip.

“I went to Tulsa in 1991,” Nickerson said. “Over 35 [people] went to Alabama and I went to Baton Rouge. I never thought I would go, and now I’m going to my fourth [National Senior Games].”

Nickerson said besides the 13 players on the team, a large contingent of family members will be flying with the team, as well as meeting with family members who live in the San Francisco area.

“We’re calling it ‘Maine Nation’,” Nickerson said.

Nickerson said the recent economic situation has made it difficult for many teams from around the country to attend the event, but said there will still be plenty of competition. He said teams in other states might have a larger season because of better weather, while in the Greater Portland Senior Men’s Softball League, there are only 14 games, and wet weather was an issue through the spring and summer.

“We think we’ll be competitive,” Nickerson said.

Nickerson said the team’s strength on the field is their defense, but have worked on their hitting during the offseason with teaching sessions at Maine Hits, an indoor baseball facility in Scarborough. The team worked with Ken Joyce, hitting coach of the Las Vegas 51’s, a minor league baseball affiliate of the Toronto Blue Jays.

Shelley Nickerson is no stranger to her husband’s love of softball. She said she’s been used to being around the sport since they met 23 years ago.

“I’m not a sports person,” she said. “I got into scoring the games. I guess as time went on, people would say ‘Why is he still playing?’ and I said ‘I don’t know.’ He retired for one year and was not happy at all. I said ‘Go play, enjoy yourself.’”

Shelley Nickerson said she got into scoring games because she would often be the only fan in the stands.

“I’ve been going to practices and games for 23 years,” she said. “I would be the lone cheerleader. So I said, ‘Let me take the book.’ It’s terrific, because I make a lot of good friends.”

Bill Nickerson said he doesn’t see an end to his softball career anytime soon.

“I really don’t see any end,” he said. “It becomes a factor when a team doesn’t want me anymore.”

“It’ll be around 94,” Shelley Nickerson said.

Bill Nickerson told a story of his cousin’s husband, who died on a golf course at the age of 72.

“He loved that course, and he loved golf,” Nickerson said. “If you’ve got to go, what better way than to do what you love doing?”

As Bill Nickerson’s softball career continues, so too does Shelley Nickerson’s career of holding a pencil and a scoring book.

“As long as he’s playing,” she said.

Staff writer Dave Dyer can be reached at 282-4337 ext. 219.