2003 (Fall) Male Player: George Duane Laws
/George Duane Laws
In a softball career that spanned a quarter century, powerful first basement and catcher Duane Lewis hit for both average and power, compiling a .710 average while pounding out over 1,250 home runs – all of it done with wooden and early mode, non-high-tech aluminum bats. During that span of time, he appeared in 14 World and National tournaments.
Laws played USSSA softball from 1974 to 1984, and again from 1990 to 1994, finally retiring at 48-years-old.
A basketball and baseball player at Sparta High School, Laws played little baseball during his four years in the Air Force. A year after coming home from overseas, though, he started playing baseball again in the St. Clair/Monroe County League, as well as fast pitch softball. Then, one evening Ray Naile asked him to play on his slow pitch team.
Had he gone with his initial reaction when Naile asked him to play, Laws, a baseball and fast pitch player, would have never played an inning of slow pitch. “Slow pitch softball?” Laws replied scornfully when asked if he’d be interested in playing the game. “You gotta be crazy! That’s a girl’s sport!”
Laws admits that he soon found out he was wrong.
“Slow pitch had its ups and downs too,” Laws acknowledged. “It wasn’t as easy as it looked.”
Playing in a qualifier in Red Bud once, he hit 14 home runs, one of several occasions in with the powerful 6-foot-6-inch Laws hit ten or more home runs in a tournament.
Laws was a key player on the 1976 Braun’s softball squad that won the USSSA Class B State Championship. He also played for Kohler’s when they won the 1985 USSSA AA State.
Though 44-years-old at the time, Laws won two batting titles in 1990 – a tournament and a league batting title.
“All the years I played USSSA softball, it was because I loved it,” Laws said. “I enjoyed every minute of it.”
Laws points to the entire Braun team when asked who he most recalls best.
“The guys there, they gave me a lot of support,” Laws said. “None of them were [anywhere] near as big as me, but they were a bunch of scrappers. They were a confidence builder for me.”
Like many players, though, Laws his mixed feelings about today’s high-tech bats. While acknowledging that they’ve helped some players, he would not consider using one. He recalls handling one of the first high-tech bats owned by his friend, fellow Hall of Fame inductee Greg Jones.
“I told him, ‘There’s no way I could use this,’” Laws recalled. “’I’d have no bat control with such a light bat.’”
Bat control was never a problem for Duane. He played our sport well enough to gain the respect of many friends and opponents alike. It is our pleasure to show him our ultimate respect by inducting him in the Illinois USSSA Hall of Fame.